


All the Crayons of the Rainbow

by FromSeaToSea



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Abusive Parents, Adoption, Alternate Universe, Angst, Family Issues, Fighting, Fluff, Friendship, Human Names Used, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mainly from America's point of view, Mental Health Issues, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, No Incest, Original Character(s), Orphanage, Orphans, POV Multiple, Ships will be a thing later on, Sibling Love, Swearing, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-08-29 16:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16747588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromSeaToSea/pseuds/FromSeaToSea
Summary: It was a picture of their family. Mathew was holding his toy polar bear, Kumajiro, Alfred was holding his toy alien, Tony, and their dad was holding Alfred’s mom’s hand.“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Alfred wondered.“I don’t think so, it’s been a year,” Mathew said solemnly.“Do you think we could be adopted then?”“Kiku said that older kids don’t usually get adopted.”





	1. Dark Blue is for Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tags make it sound like it's all angst but trust me there are happy moments... sometimes.
> 
> Ages: Alfred 6, Mathew 8, Kiku 13, Arthur 9, Francis 10, Ludwig 6, Gilbert 11, Antonio 11, Ivan 10, Elizabeta 9

**March 2006**

Alfred reached for the light blue crayon. He absolutely needed it to complete his masterpiece. He was currently drawing a picture of his favourite animal; a whale, and he needed the light blue for the sky. He had already used the dark blue for the water and the purple for the whale.

Once he’d grabbed it, he started to furiously scribble in the sky.

“And done!” He exclaimed holding it up.

Mathew who was across from him was too absorbed in his own drawing to notice Alfred.

“Hey, Mattie! Look what I made!” Alfred said louder and shook the picture in order to get his brother’s attention.

Mathew looked up and studied the drawing before going back to what he was doing, “it looks really good Alfred.”

“That’s it? No ‘wow Alfred I wish I could draw like you!’ or something that matches this amazingness?”

“Wow Alfred I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Mathew said in a deadpan.

Alfred huffed, “okay then what are YOU drawing?” He stood up on his chair and leaned over the table.

It was a picture of their family. Mathew was holding his toy polar bear, Kumajiro, Alfred was holding his toy alien, Tony, and their dad was holding Alfred’s mom’s hand.

“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Alfred wondered. One year ago, Alfred and Mathew had been taken away and forced to move into an orphanage when the police had suddenly shown up at their house and arrested their parents.

Neither knew why this had happened because their parents hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, they were the best parents Alfred and Mathew could have asked for! Their dad and Alfred’s mom always had tons of money to buy them candies and toys, even if sometimes they wouldn’t be home all day and would come home smelling bad.

So now they were waiting and hoping that someday soon the police would realize they had the wrong people. Their parents were too nice to have done something bad.

Or at least Alfred was.

“I don’t think so, it’s been a year,” Mathew said solemnly. Mathew was much less optimistic about their parents coming back, as he had grown up knowing his birth mother had died and never having met her. Sometimes he thought that he wasn’t meant to have parents.

Alfred sat down and laid his head on the table. “Do you think we could be adopted then?” Although he didn’t really want to be taken in by another family, it was better than being stuck in an orphanage. Even if he had heard that this was the nicest orphanage in the city.

“Kiku said that older kids don’t usually get adopted.”

Kiku was the first kid to have ever been taken into Yao’s orphanage. According to Yao, he’d been placed on the doorstep of the orphanage when he was just a baby. He didn’t even know who his parents were. Alfred couldn’t imagine that.

And since Orchid Orphanage was small and only had a few kids, Kiku had known everyone that had come and gone. Yao would have loved to take more children in, but with him being the only caretaker and it only having a limited amount of rooms, that couldn’t happen.

“Hello, Alfred and Mathew. Can I join you?” A voice with a heavy Russian accent asked. _Great_ , thought Alfred, _just who I didn’t want to see_. The Russian kid, Ivan, was Alfred’s mortal enemy. Ever since he first laid eyes on him he’d hated him. They were always fighting, whether it be saying mean things, or hitting each other. And what made Alfred the angriest was that Ivan always acted nice as if he had no idea he was the evilest kid in the world.

“Sure Ivan,” Mathew smiled. Alfred stared at his older brother with a look of betrayal. He knew that he didn’t like Ivan! He knew Mathew was Canadian, but that didn’t mean he had to be nice to monsters.

“Cпасибо Mathew,” he said before sitting down on Alfred’s left. _NO! NO! NO! NO! N-_

“Is that how you say thank you in Russian?” Mathew asked, putting his head in his hands.

Ivan nodded. “Yes, it is! I wanted to say it in my first language so you would know how grateful I am!”

_Liar! You big, fat, ugly, mean-_

“Oh, it’s no problem! It’s not fair if we wouldn’t let you join.”

“Yes, well I know that Alfred does not like me,” Ivan said before looking down at his hands.

Alfred was about to comment when Mathew replied before he could, “that’s not true!” He wanted to tell the truth, but Mathew sent him a glare. _Why should I be nice to him!?_ He thought but said nothing.

“Really?” Ivan looked at Alfred for confirmation.

“Yes, really,” the words tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Oh yay!” Ivan then hugged Alfred with all his might. _This hurts! How’s he so strong!_

After a very long lasting, painful moment, Ivan let go and grabbed his own piece of paper to draw on. Alfred watched him reach for a brown crayon before grabbing his own blank piece of paper. Maybe he’d draw Tony and him having an adventure.

Once he was done drawing Tony in his spaceship he reached for the yellow to draw the stars. Just as he was reaching out to grab it Ivan snatched it before he could. Alfred had to use all his power to not growl. First, he’d been forced to get a hug from him, and now he couldn’t even finish his drawing!

He slouched in his chair and sighed. Now what was he supposed to do while Ivan used the crayon he wanted?

After feeling sorry for himself he got an idea. He glanced over at Ivan and tried to subtly see what he was drawing. It was a sunflower. This surprised Alfred, he expected blood or a scene with dead bodies, but no, it was just a simple flower.

He decided to ask about it, “why’re you drawing a sunflower?”

Ivan replied without pausing, “they are my favourite flower. They’re all bright and beautiful, and yellow is supposed to be a happy colour.”

“I guess.”

Ivan gave him a creepy, intimating look.

“I meant ya! Totally! They’re amazing!” Alfred said trying to get him to stop making such a scary face.

The Russian turned back to his drawing, now humming a tune to a song Alfred had never heard before. It unsettled him to see how easily Ivan could switch moods. If Alfred was angry at someone, it took him as long as an hour to calm down, and for Ivan, it only took him a second! Was he crazy?

He shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it. He’d probably just end up wanting to fight him, which he couldn’t afford right now. It was best to just stare at his own artwork until Ivan was done with the yellow.

He sighed, he was getting bored. Maybe he and Mathew could go outside onto the swings after. Or maybe they could play in the sandbox. All he knew was that he wanted to play outside in the orphanage's small playground. But sadly, at that moment rain started to fall from the sky, _or not_ , he thought disappointed.

It was almost like the world was angry at him. And he hadn’t even been bad once today! He’d tried his best to be on good behaviour. Yao had told him, as well as everyone else, to be on their best behaviour today because he had a surprise for them. This could mean anything from amazing stuff like going on a field trip, to being allowed extra dessert after dinner, or something lame like getting a new book they could all share. Since he knew if he did anything to upset Yao, he wouldn’t get to be apart of the surprise, Alfred was going all out on being a good boy. Even if the surprise was just a new book, it could be a book about heroes and have pictures!

As he finished thinking about what Yao would give them, Alfred felt eyes on him. He glanced over at Mathew and saw that he was the culprit.

“Why’re you watching me?”

“I was wondering how you could be so quiet.”

“I was thinking.”

Mathew smirked, “you think?”

“Don’t make me tell Yao!” Alfred yelled slamming his fists on the table, startling Ivan.

“I was joking. So, were you thinking about what the surprise could be?”

“Maybe he’s taking us to the new arcade that just opened,” Ivan piped in.

“I wish, but I asked him if we could go and he said it was too expensive,” Alfred whined. If he was still with his parents he could have gone. Actually, they could have probably gone there every day.

“Maybe we’re going to the zoo?” Mathew suggested.

“I hope not, that’s boring!”

“I like the zoo! I think the animals are really cute!” Ivan cooed.

“My favourite animal is a polar bear! They’re cute and can blend in with the snow.” Mathew started to bounce in his seat because he was so excited.

“I like polar bears too! I actually like all bears.”

As the two of them bonded over cute animals Alfred stood up and left, he was tired of having to wait to finish his drawing. He left the quiet room and started walking towards the kitchen. Maybe he could convince Yao to give him a snack before lunch or steal one. Either was fine.

On his way to the kitchen, he made a game of trying to avoid every crack and break in the floor. The building wasn’t too old but with a lack of money, renovations weren’t possible. Even if Yao had the money, he would spend it on new things for the kids instead of renovating.

Because he was paying more attention to where he was stepping instead of his surroundings, he ended up slamming into someone. They both ended up falling to the floor, with Alfred laying on that person’s chest. He looked up and saw that the person he’d ran into was Kiku. As Alfred got up he pulled Kiku with him, standing them both on their feet again.

“I’m sorry Alfred, I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice you,” Kiku apologized as he brushed himself off. Alfred noticed he was wearing a light blue t-shirt with Pikachu on it. He’d have to ask him where he’d gotten it.

“It’s cool, I wasn’t looking either,” Alfred said, “so where are you headed?”

“I was actually coming to get you and your brother because Yao wants all of us in the library.”

Alfred’s eyes widened. That meant that Yao was going to give them their surprise. He started to bounce up and down on his feet.

“What do you think the surprise is? I really hope it’s something cool like a giant toy dog, or maybe we’re going to get take-out!”

“I’m not sure, but I saw Yao leave and then come back.” That was a good sign! That meant that the surprise was too big to hide. So, it couldn’t be a book.

Alfred followed the older boy to where Mathew and Ivan were still drawing. Once they arrived back in the quiet room Kiku explained what was happening and lead them towards the library. Alfred could barely contain his excitement. They hardly got surprises, and this one was bound to be good.

When they entered the library, Alfred saw that everyone else was already there. Even with all 9 of them sitting on all the furniture and on the floor, the place wasn’t crowded.

Once the four of them sat on the floor, Yao started talking, “ok, so all of you know that I called you here because I’ve got a surprise for you so,” Yao turned towards one of the bookshelves, “you can come out now.”

Two boys stepped out from behind the shelf, the first had short, messy, white hair, bright red eyes, and pale skin. If that wasn’t intimidating enough he also had a devious smirk painted on his face. Behind him was a shorter boy with neat, blond hair and was trying to hide behind the taller boy.

“Meet Gilbert and Ludwig, they’ll be our new family members,” Yao said.

 _So, this was the surprise!_ Alfred thought, _that’s not fair,_ _even a dictionary would have been better_!

He chose to study the two since they would now be living with them and maybe if they weren’t anything like Ivan then they could be friends. The taller one, Gilbert, looked cocky, he was holding his head up high and looking at the other kids like he wanted to pick a fight with one of them. That didn’t bother Alfred because he was cocky sometimes too.

On the other hand, the younger one, Ludwig, looked shyer. He was looking at the floor and making sure to stay close to his brother. Alfred also noticed how he had a cast on his left arm and had some scratches, some healed and some not. Maybe that was the reason they’d come to the orphanage. Maybe their parents had been hurting them.

He made a mental note to ask about it later.

Everyone started to walk over to the two new kids and get to know them. Alfred stayed at a distance, curious, but not interested in trying to get through the crowd to talk to them.

Gilbert was basking in the attention, while Ludwig looked like he wanted to hide.  Alfred noted Mathew try and say something to Ludwig, probably asking if he wanted to get away from the crowd, but he moved away from Mathew before he could even finish his sentence. Mathew looking a bit hurt as he walked over to Alfred.

“I don’t get it, I just wanted to ask if he wanted me to pull him away from the crowd, but he flinched away from me like I was going to hurt him.”

“Maybe his parents beat him,” Alfred said bluntly.

“Alfred!”

“What?” Alfred raised an eyebrow, “I saw him when you tried talking to him, he almost jumped out of his skin.”

“You’re exaggerating. Maybe he’s shy.”

“Sure,” Alfred said, looking away from Mathew towards the others. The crowd had now lessened, everyone no longer as interested in the new members. The only ones left were Francis and Antonio who were talking to Gilbert.

Alfred stood up and headed over.

“What’re you doing?” Mathew asked as he followed his brother.

“Nothing,” Alfred said with a false sense of innocence.

“Hello!” he greeted as he reached the four.

“Hi!” Gilbert said in a German accent, “I’m Gilbert and you are?”

“I’m Alfred and this is Mathew, my older brother.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gilbert said as he shook both their hands. Ludwig was watching them wearily.

“Me and Mattie were curious on how you got orphaned.” There was no sense beating around the bush.

“Alfred.” Mathew hissed.

Gilbert’s visibly stiffened. “Something happened to our dad,” he replied vaguely. Francis and Antonio exchanged glances at this and silently decided to leave before something happened. Alfred was notorious for starting fights and they weren’t interested in getting into trouble with Yao.

“Really? What was it because he’s got a cast on.” Alfred reached out to grab Ludwig’s arm, but Gilbert grabbed his wrist before he could even get close. The death grip Gilbert had on his arm was hard enough that Alfred had to control himself from crying out in pain.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch him,” Gilbert’s growl was so intimidating that Alfred was thinking that Ivan wasn’t the scariest person he knew anymore and had also made him immediately regret ever opening his mouth.

From the look Gilbert was giving, Alfred was expecting to be beaten to a pulp, but what really happened was much more surprising and a lot better. Ludwig grabbed Gilbert’s hand and pulled it off Alfred’s wrist. Gilbert complied but continued to glare at him. Alfred had never wanted to disappear into the floor more than in this moment.

Ludwig sighed and said quietly, “our father was killed in a car crash and I was in the car with him. That’s why I have a cast.”

 _Oh_. Now Alfred felt like the biggest jerk in the world. _Even Ivan wouldn’t have been so mean_ , Alfred thought guiltily. No wonder the younger was so jumpy. That must have been a terrible thing to have experienced and he was probably having trouble handling it.

“Sorry,” Alfred mumbled, “I-” but what could he say? That he wasn’t thinking? That he’d been rash? That he should have taken more than a minute to think about confronting them on this?

“It’s fine,” Gilbert said, making Alfred jump. He hadn’t expected to hear anything from Gilbert, or at least not anything that wasn’t violent or threatening. “I’d probably do the same.” Gilbert gave a weak smirk.

“If I showed you around and helped you sneak some candy could that make up for what happened?” Alfred inquired.

Gilbert thought about it for a moment before saying, “that sounds good to me.”

   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this first chapter because there are more to come! I'll do my best to update regularly but I will make no promises to you as I'm very busy lately trying to get my portfolio together for college.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment telling me if you loved it or hated it, or maybe how I have too many commas in my sentences xD.


	2. Dark Red is for Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Francis, I dare you to kiss Arthur.”
> 
> “What?” Francis sat up and looked at Gilbert with wide eyes.
> 
> “I said-”
> 
> “I heard what you said.”
> 
> “Then why’re you asking me what?”
> 
> “Because I don’t get why you’d dare me to kiss Arthur of all people.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages: Arthur just turned 10, Francis 10, Gilbert 11, Antonio 11

**April 2006**

It was a surprisingly sunny day for April. There were only a few clouds in sight and none that looked like they were carrying rain. This was why today Arthur’s birthday was being celebrated outside, instead of inside like it normally would be.

Currently, everyone was chatting with one another in separate groups, waiting for Yao to get back with the party games. One group that was further away from the building then anyone else was trying to find a way to entertain themselves for the next few minutes.

“We could play tag,” Antonio suggested.

“Tag isn’t a party game, it’s a normal game you play when you’re really bored and nothing special is happening,” Gilbert pointed out.

Antonio started to pick at the grass. “We could play grounders.”

“I’m not walking through the orphanage to get to the playground, only for Yao to call us back here,” Francis said.

“You need better ideas,” Gilbert sighed, reaching his hands up to pretend to reach for the sky.

“Well, I’m the only one suggesting things. Why don’t you think of something if you don’t like my ideas?” Antonio huffed.

“Oh, you’ve done it now Gil, pissing off Antonio. What are you going to do next, kick a puppy?”

“Not my fault, I was just telling the truth,” Gilbert said. Antonio stuck his tongue out at Gil, who then reacted by mirroring his friend.

They sat in silence for awhile, all three of them trying to think of something fun to do. They each came up with several but didn’t share them because they didn’t feel as if they were good enough until Gilbert thought of something.

“Francis, I dare you to kiss Arthur.”

“What?” Francis sat up and looked at Gilbert with wide eyes.

“I said-”

“I heard what you said.”

“Then why’re you asking me what?”

“Because I don’t get why you’d dare me to kiss Arthur of all people.”

“Come on it’ll be funny.” Gilbert smirked. “Imagine how he’ll freak out, screaming like a cat who’s been thrown in a bath of water.” He finished his sentence with a laugh.

“I don’t know…” Francis trailed off. That sounded like a possibly terrible idea, Arthur could be unpredictable in his anger. Most of the time he blew up over everything, even small things like being bumped into. Although, there were the occasional times when something big would happen and Arthur would just fume silently to himself in his room.

“Ya Gil, I don’t think that sounds like a good idea,” Antonio warned.

“It’s fine, he only ever screams at people. It’s not like he’ll hurt you.”

Antonio and Francis exchanged worried looks, Gilbert had only been at the orphanage for a month and hadn’t seen Arthur truly angry yet. He didn’t know the extent of Arthur’s violent reactions.

“I don’t-”

“What’re you chicken?”

“No! I am not, I just-”

“Just like the French to back out of a fight.”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” Antonio shook his head no in protest to Francis’ words. “It’ll be fine Antonio,” he reassured. He got up, his legs now feeling weak, and slowly made his way over to where Arthur was talking to Kiku.

 _Please don’t let him kill me, please don’t let him kill me_ , he kept hoping.

As he got closer he could make out the conversation that Arthur and Kiku were having.

“I’m really excited that I finally got the half-blood prince! I’ll only have to wait until the last one comes out to have all of them.” Arthur was hugging the book to his chest as he told Kiku this. “Thank you so much for it!”

“No problem, I knew you've wanted it since last year. I would have gotten it for you for Christmas, but there was only hardcover, and I couldn’t afford it.”

“That’s fine, all my other ones are soft cover, so it’ll match.”

Francis reached them, standing a bit off to the side and tried to psych himself up before he said, “hello Arthur.”

Arthur’s tone immediately shifted from joyful to closed off and hostile, “what do you want frog?”

“I came to personally say happy 10th birthday! How does it feel to finally be double digits?”

Arthur turned to face him, “I guess it’s-”

Francis quickly sized the opening and leaned in to catch Arthurs lips with his own. Unfortunately, Arthur realized what was happening. He managed to stop him before and slammed him to the ground. He tried in vain to get away, but Arthur was quicker than him and pinned his arms above his head.

“Arthur!” Kiku yelped.

“What the hell were you doing!” Arthur snapped, ignoring Kiku completely.

“I’m sorry! Gilbert made me!” he pleaded, knowing that this was the end for him. He should have let Gilbert continue to call him a chicken, he shouldn’t have let it bother him. If he had just stayed and ignored him, Gilbert would have given up and he wouldn’t be in this mess.

“Fuck you frog!” Arthur yelled before he punched him square in the jaw.

Francis cried out in pain and started to struggle harder. “Please! I said I was sorry!”

“Bullshit!” Arthur continued to punch him repeatedly in the face and his chest. Once Arthur let go of his arms in order use both fists Francis reached up to block his face, but he knew he already had a split lip and was pretty sure that he had a black eye.

Just as he was starting to lose hope, Yao came back.

“Arthur what are you doing!” Yao exclaimed as he noticed the situation. He ran over to the two boys and pried Arthur off Francis.

“Come on, I think you need a moment to calm down.” Yao dragged Arthur towards the orphanage, presumably to take him to his room. Before he reached the door though, he told Kiku something who nodded in agreement.

Francis sat up and saw everyone staring at him. Some looked concerned, while others had smug looks on their faces that said, ‘you got what you deserved’. He found himself kind of agreeing with them.

“Francis are you okay?” Antonio asked as he and Gilbert ran towards him.

“It-it hurts,” he gasped. He grabbed his head to keep it from swimming. “And I feel dizzy.”

“I’m so sorry Francis. This is all my fault I-” Gilbert sat down beside Francis and gave him a gentle hug. “Please don’t hate me,” he sniffled.

“I don’t- I don’t hate you.” It was getting harder to form sentences. He really just wanted to sleep.

“Gilbert, I think we should bring Francis to lie down” Kiku encouraged.

“Okay,” Gilbert complied.

Francis then felt himself being picked up but couldn’t see who as he had closed his eyes. It was getting too hard to keep them open. He assumed it was Antonio and Gilbert since they were the strongest.

“I’ll go get Yao, just bring him to his room and lay him on his bed okay?” Kiku told them.

“Alright.”

That was the last thing Francis heard before he blacked out.

****

Yao opened the door and Arthur immediately went to his bed, sitting down and avoiding his caretaker’s gaze.

“Now are you going to tell me why you were fighting Francis?” Yao urged in a soft tone.

Arthur stayed silent.

Yao sighed, “I’m not going to punish you if that’s what you’re worried about. I just want to know what Francis did to make you hurt him.”

Arthur continued to glare at his hands in silence.

Yao ran his hand through his hair, it was clear that Arthur wasn’t interested in talking right now.

“I think you need a bit to calm down. I’ll come back in about an hour and we can see if you’re ready to talk,” Yao said. As he left he gently closed the door behind him and Arthur was once again alone.

****

When Francis woke, he couldn’t tell how long he was out because the curtains were drawn and there were no clocks in his room. He assumed that it had at least been a few hours, judging from the two sleeping forms on the bed beside him.

He stood up and walked over to Antonio’s bed and shook Gilbert’s shoulder to wake him.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked.

“Uh… it’s been about an hour I think.” Gilbert stretched his hands above his head as he yawned. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Francis sat beside Gilbert on the bed, being calmed by the sound of Antonio’s soft breaths.

“For daring you to kiss Arthur,” Gilbert sighed, “I should have listened to you. You and Antonio both said it was a bad idea, but I was just thinking about myself and how I thought it would be funny.” He started to nervously pick at the red bedsheets.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know how angry Arthur can get.”

“No, it’s not okay! I should have listened to you.” Gilbert pulled his legs up to his chin. “It’s all my fault.”

Then in a voice so quiet, Francis was sure that he wasn’t meant to hear Gilbert said, “everything’s my fault.”

Instead of replying, Francis leaned closer and gave Gilbert a hug. Gilbert didn’t respond right away but after a few moments, he returned the hug.

“I’m going to go see Arthur,” he decided.

“Why?” Gilbert wondered.

“I want to say sorry for what I did.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to tell him sorry? Since I was the one who thought of it,” Gilbert reasoned.

Francis got off Antonio’s bed and headed for the door. “I was the one to actually try and kiss him, so I’m the one who has to apologize.”

Gilbert shrugged. “Okay, have fun. I’ll make sure that when Tonio wakes up he knows you didn’t just disappear into thin air.”

As he stepped out into the hallway he could hear his friend laughing at his own joke. At least he wouldn’t let the guilt get to him too badly.

Since all the rooms were located on the top floor and there were seven of them it only took a few minutes to get to Arthur’s bedroom. Francis examined the sign taped to the door that read ‘Arthur and Kiku’s room’ in bright red crayon. There was also a picture of a wizard’s hat and a red pokéball on it.

He brought his fist up to the door and knocked. Nothing.

“I know you’re in there Arthur,” he called.

He heard a voice reply, “go away.”

“No, I came here to say sorry.” He wasn’t going to let Arthur chase him away. He was going to apologize and if Arthur was going to be stubborn about letting him, then he would be stubborn too.

“I don’t want your apology.” Arthur’s voice sounded like it was closer to the door. Francis knew he just needed one more push.

“I’m not leaving until you give me a chance.”

The door peaked open a crack, only allowing Francis to see a green eye and some messy blond hair.

“Why should I?” he asked.

“Because I’ll sit outside your door singing French songs I know you hate like Frère Jacques until you do,” he threatened.

Arthur rolled his eyes and said, “fine.” He fully opened the door and lead Francis to his bed.

They sat side by side, too close for enemies and too far away for friends. Francis wished that this awkward moment would be over soon.

“I’m sorry about trying to kiss you. I know that it was mean, and I know that even if someone fabulous came up and tried to kiss me I wouldn’t like it if they didn’t ask first,” he half-joked trying to make the atmosphere friendlier.

“Why did you try and kiss me anyway? You love to be annoying, but you’re not stupid enough to come up with that,” Arthur wondered.

“Gilbert thought of it.”

“Ah.” As if that explained everything.

There was a pause before Francis spoke, “if I had only ignored him then this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Ignored him? What do you mean?”

“Gilbert dared me to kiss you, then when I said it was a bad idea he called me a chicken and said that it was just like the French to be scaredy-cats or something,” he explained. “If I had ignored his taunting then you wouldn’t have had the worst birthday ever!” He threw his hands up and fell backwards on the bed, angry that he had destroyed Arthur’s party just because he couldn’t ignore a few insults.

“For one, this is definitely not the worst birthday I’ve ever had,” Arthur assured, “and two I get why you did it.”

Francis sat up and looked at the boy in confusion. “You understand?”

“My brothers used to do stuff like that too.” Francis’ mouth opened in shock, Arthur almost never talked about his life before the orphanage. The only person who was more closed off about their past was Ivan.

“Stuff like what?”

“They would dare me to do things like run across a busy street or try and pet the neighbour's guard dog and if I refused they’d call me weak or a baby. Sometimes they’d hit me if I didn’t. That’s why I get why you did it because I used to do it too.”

“Then why didn’t you understand when I first told you?”

“When you first did it, it reminded me of the time my brother Alistair held me down and dangled a snake in my face. So, I got scared and pinned you down and then realized what you did and got really angry, so I beat you up for making me feel that.” Arthur laid down on his side and picked at his fingernails, avoiding eye-contact with Francis.

“I’m so sorry for making you think of that. I didn’t know.”

“You’re right you didn’t know, but now you do.” He shrugged. “You were trying to make me angry, but I know you weren’t trying to hurt me, so I forgive you.”

“Thank you.” And that was all there was to say. They didn’t need to talk about the past, and they didn’t want to, so they just sat there talking about Harry Potter and what Arthur thought of his birthday presents until Yao showed up and took them back downstairs to play games.


	3. Blue Purple is for Worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan continued to draw pictures for everyone. He drew a sword for Gilbert, a DS for Kiku, and a unicorn for Arthur. After he finished drawing everyone something he wondered if he should draw something for his sisters.
> 
> The problem with that though was that he didn’t even know what they liked. He didn’t even know them. He had never met his younger sister, and he only vaguely remembered his older sister from when he was very little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages: Ivan 11, Iryna 12, Natalia 10, Mathew 8

**June 2006**

Everything was going to be fine.

Ivan sat by the window and watched as the cars drove by and the few pedestrians that were out walking either by themselves or with their dog. If it wasn’t so early, then there would probably be more people out and about.

Everything was going to be fine.

He turned away from the window and then grabbed the paper and pencil he had resting beside him. He was going to draw pictures for all his friends. He drew a polar bear for Mathew, a dress for Francis, and the Batman logo for Alfred.

Even though they fought all the time Ivan still considered Alfred to be one of his friends. He actually considered everyone that lived in the orphanage to be his friends.

Everything was going to be fine.

Ivan continued to draw pictures for everyone. He drew a sword for Gilbert, a DS for Kiku, and a unicorn for Arthur. After he finished drawing everyone something he wondered if he should draw something for his sisters.

Everything was going to be fine.

The problem with that though was that he didn’t even know what they liked. He didn’t even know them. He had never met his younger sister, and he only vaguely remembered his older sister from when he was very little.

He decided to draw them each a flower. Ivan loved flowers, not to mention they were pretty, so he couldn’t see why they wouldn’t like them.

Everything was going to be fine.

Ivan pulled back to admire his work before sighing. What was he supposed to do now to take his mind off things? If he couldn’t keep himself distracted from thinking of all the bad things that could happen, he would start to feel sick.

Everything was going to be fine.

Things had been fine several months ago. Nobody but him knew that he had any siblings. Then Alfred had made some comment about how he was lucky not to have a brother because if he did, he would be the most miserable kid on the planet. So, he had replied that Alfred was right, he didn’t have a brother, but he did have a sister. It had worked, Alfred had shut up and left him alone, but Yao had overheard.

Yao had immediately started to research as much as he could find about her so that they could be together again. Which was okay with him, there was nothing wrong with looking, but he wasn’t so sure about being together again. Then Yao had come upon a source that his dad had had another child after him with another woman. That meant he had two half-sisters instead of just one like he had originally thought.

Ivan barely had time to take all of this in and accept it before Yao had informed him that he found both of his sisters. And that they were coming to live with them.

So, now he was waiting in the quiet room for Yao to come back from picking up Iryna and Natalia. That’s what their names were, Iryna was his older sister and Natalia was his younger.

Everything was going to be fine.

It was kind of a lie that he knew nothing about them. Throughout the months of research Yao had done and talking to both an orphanage and the foster care system, he had gathered some facts about them. He had told Ivan that his older sister, Iryna, had been taken in by her mother after Ivan’s father had died. She hadn’t taken him because she wasn’t his biological son, but someone else’s.

He guessed that meant his father had been married to at least three women since they all had different mothers. It was probably because from what he remembered his dad was always angry and tended to hit people.

She was only recently put into an orphanage after her mother had died of cancer.

As for Natalia, she was immediately put into foster care after what happened to their dad, just as he had been. She had been in multiple homes before going into the Roy’s household where she was currently living. From the conversation Yao had had with them, it seemed they didn’t really care what happened to her and were glad to have her off their hands.

Ivan wasn’t too sure how to feel about that. He still wasn’t sure how to feel about all of this. It was going too fast for him and he felt as if he was running to catch up, but he kept getting further behind.

Everything was going to be fine.

As for everyone else in the orphanage, most of them didn’t really care. Kiku and Antonio, the ones who had been here the longest and were used to new kids coming and going and they had lived through a time when every room had had three kids in it, so they didn’t mind two more. Elizabeta was excited to finally have girls living with them.

He looked to the clock on the wall to see that it now read 8:30. He rested his head against the table and closed his eyes.

Everything was going to be fine.

****

He felt a hand gripping his shoulder and shaking him. He immediately shot up ready to fight back against the person only to here an exclamation of surprise before seeing Mathew’s face.

_Oh right._

“Sorry if I startled you Ivan,” Mathew apologized, “but I know you wanted to see your sisters as soon as they arrived and it’s now 10, so Yao should be back soon.”

Had he really slept that long?

“Thank you for waking me, and I am sorry I tried to attack you, I thought you were-” Ivan clamped his mouth shut. “never mind. Are you going to sit and wait with me?”

Mathew started to play with his fingers. “I guess if you want me to.”

Ivan smiled. “Of course I do! You are my friend after all.”

Mathew gave a weak smile in return and started to head towards the front door.

“Where’s Alfred?” It was unusual to see the two apart, while they had their differences, they were also similar in many ways. Both loved junk food, although it was more common for Alfred to be eating it than Mathew, and both were very strong. Alfred also once mentioned that Mathew could be just as mean as him, if not more so. Ivan wasn’t too sure he believed that, but he made a note not to get on the Canadian’s bad side.

“Oh, he and Kiku are playing Mario Kart. And Alfred doesn’t want to walk away from his DS because he’s afraid Kiku will cheat and unpause,” Mathew replied.

“Kiku wouldn’t do that.”

Mathew shrugged. “I know, but it’s Alfred. There’s no reasoning with him when he gets a dumb idea in his head.”

Ivan nodded in agreement. He himself had witnessed Alfred’s stubbornness first-hand multiple times and he was sure to see it many more in the future.

They didn’t say anything after that and just continued walking. Ivan always hated silences, it meant something bad was going to happen, or at least it used to before he came to live in the orphanage. Now when people went quiet after talking to him, they didn’t do anything, nothing bad or good happened. Which was okay, but he was still afraid of the day that something bad did happen.

They arrived at the entrance and he immediately opened the door to see if anyone was out there, but no one was.

“It’ll probably be another 20 minutes or so before he gets back,” Mathew guessed.

Ivan sat down on the floor with his back up against the wall. He could go outside and wait for them, but it was hot out and he didn’t have any sunscreen on and with his pale skin he was sure to burn.

Mathew stood beside him and rocked back and forth on his feet, looking around the entrance way hoping to find something to occupy himself with, but found nothing.

“So, um… your sisters’ names are Iryn and Natasha right?” Mathew asked.

“Iryna and Natalia actually,” Ivan corrected, “but you were close.”

He heard Mathew mumble a sorry and Ivan waved it off. At least he had tried to remember. He doubted that most of the others had even bothered.

“Did you live with them? You know before… you went into foster care?” Mathew asked shyly.

Ivan clenched his fist and growled, “why do you want to know?” He then saw Mathew shrink away from him in fear. Ivan tried to control his breathing like Yao had said. Deep breaths in and out. That was how he was supposed to help control himself and make sure he didn't let his anger get the best of him. It usually worked. Sometimes he'd get too angry to remember or care to do it, but right now he was only a little mad.

He did this a few times before he said softly, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Ivan curled in on himself and pouted. He didn’t always mean to get so aggressive, but sometimes people said the wrong thing and it made him angry and it was hard for him to control. It was also hard to not get angry when people kept asking about his past. He just wanted to forget everything, why couldn’t they just accept that?

“Uh,” Mathew mumbled. “Yao said that… that he made welcoming cookies for Natalia and Iryna. Do you- do you want me to go get them or…?”

Ivan glanced at Mathew before quickly averting his eyes. “Yes, you can go get them if you want.”

Mathew nodded and then started to jog towards the kitchen. _Probably happy to be away from me_ , Ivan thought bitterly.

He started to nervously scratch at the skin on his wrists. For some reason, it comforted him more so than focusing on his breathing. He always had to pay attention to what he was doing though since once he had scratched so hard he had started bleeding and Yao had thought he was cutting himself.

He really wished Yao didn’t pay so much attention to him. It led to conversations he didn’t want, and he had to be careful about what he said.

The sound of a car pulling up to the building could be heard and Ivan opened the door to see Yao’s old beat up car sitting in the driveway. He got up and stepped outside, keeping close to the door.

This was it. He was finally going to be reunited with his sisters and get to know them. He hoped that they were nice.

He held his breath until his chest hurt. Everything was going to be fine.

The first person out of the vehicle was Yao, getting out of the driver’s side. He leaned back into the car to say something before going around to the trunk and opening it.

The back door opened and out stepped a girl with short blonde hair held back with a headband and was wearing a pair of blue overalls over a white shirt. She looked just as nervous as him, if not more, which made him feel better. He wasn’t too sure whether she was his older sister or younger, but the longer he looked at her the more familiar she looked. He guessed she was Iryna, but he’d have to wait and see.

The other door opened and out came the other girl. Her hair was much longer, going down past her lower back and was also blonde and her outfit consisted of a simple dark blue dress and a white bow on top of her head.

His sister in the blue dress noticed him first and asked, “are you our brother?”

He immediately felt more nervous. What if they were mean? What if they hated him? If they hated him would Yao still make them share a room?

“Yes.” His voice shook a bit and he had said it more quietly then he had meant to, but they had still managed to hear him.

His sister who was wearing the overalls came over to him. “Do you remember me, Ivan?”

He studied her face closer, he did vaguely remember one memory of her from years ago. It was fuzzy and he had lost most of the details of what was happening, but he did remember being very happy with both of them laughing.

“Yes. You’re Iryna right?”

She smiled. “Yes, and you’re Ivan.”

Natalia walked over to the two of them and asked, “does this mean we’re a family now?”

He guessed they were kind of a family now. They were all related and they were all together now. He hoped they were a better family than the ones he had stayed with when he was being sent from foster home to foster home. But he wasn't too worried that this would come true, he had a feeling that they were better than that.

Ivan let a grin spread across his face. “I guess so.”

Iryna pulled them into a hug. “I’m so happy we get to be all back together again!”

“I don’t really remember you, but I am happy to finally have a family,” Natalia admitted.

Ivan pulled them into a tighter embrace. “I can’t wait to get to know you.”

They stayed in a group hug until Mathew came out a few minutes later followed by a few other people. All of them gave the two girls a warm welcoming and he and Alfred didn’t even bicker once. He had been right all along. Everything was going to be fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this isn't the greatest and that it took longer to post. I wasn't sure how to end it and I was rushing because I wanted to get it done. I don't think I'll be rewriting it though, while it's not an outstanding chapter I do like it.


	4. Black is for Nighttime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you think you’ll actually manage this year?” Mathew asked.
> 
> “Of course, I do!” Alfred fumed.
> 
> “Of course, you do what?” Francis asked.
> 
> “What are you talking about?” Antonio suddenly said.
> 
> “Alfred’s never managed to stay awake until midnight, but he thinks he’ll be able to do it today,” Mathew explained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages: Alfred 7, Mathew 9, Ludwig 7, Gilbert 11, Antonio 11, Francis 11, Kiku 13

**January 2007**

It was only 10 o’clock at night and Alfred was already struggling to stay awake. This was terrible!

Normally Alfred would be asleep by eight, nine at the latest, but seeing as how tonight was New Year's Eve that was not the case.

Every year he would try to stay awake until midnight yet always fail and fall asleep, but not this year. This New Years he was finally going to stay up all the way until midnight. He just needed to be more creative in how to make sure that happened.

He leaned forward, now sitting upright instead of leaning back against the couch. They were all crowded in the living room, which was small, but it was the only room in the building that had a TV. It was currently on the channel with the ball drop in New York since it was the same time zone as them.

Alfred once again straightened his posture, hoping that sitting up would help him in his goal.

“You okay?” Mathew asked from beside him.

“Ya, I’m just trying to stay awake.”

“Do you think you’ll actually manage this year?” Mathew asked.

“Of course, I do!” Alfred fumed.

“Of course, you do what?” Francis asked from the other end of the couch. Alfred didn’t really want to bring up his plan, knowing how Francis liked to poke fun at him. Especially if his two annoying friends were with him.

“What are you talking about?” Antonio suddenly said. He was sitting by Francis’ feet, allowing him to attempt to braid his short curly hair.

“Alfred’s never managed to stay awake until midnight, but he thinks he’ll be able to do it today,” Mathew explained.

He sighed knowing what was coming.

“Aw, cute you still have trouble staying awake. I remember those days, but now it’s as easy as counting to ten,” Francis smirked, “right Gil?”

Gilbert looked up from his position on the arm of one of the chairs. “Sorry what?” he asked, having been in a conversation with his younger brother.

“I asked if you remember when it was hard to stay up until midnight?” He repeated.

“Oh ya, but unlike Alfred here I was able to stay awake all night when I was 6, not 7,” the albino gloated.

“That’s not true,” Ludwig said, “two years ago when we were trying to stay up for the ball drop in 2005 you fell asleep before me. I remember because Vati carried you back to bed.”

Even from his position all the way on the opposite side of the couch Alfred could see Gilbert’s ears turn red.

“Shut up!” Gilbert said as he tackled Ludwig, knocking them both onto the floor.

“Hey!” They started to fight, rolling around on the floor. No one took it too seriously though as they could tell that it was in good nature, despite Gilbert’s embarrassment.

Elizabeta who was sitting right between the chair and the couch moved her feet but didn’t bother getting up off the floor.

“So, I guess you can’t make fun of me, now can you?” Alfred said.

“I could still make fun of your outfit,” Francis pointed out.

He looked down at his space pajamas. It didn’t look like he’d gotten food on them this time. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing, I just like teasing you that’s all.” Francis stopped braiding his friend’s hair and leaned back on the couch.

“You’re lucky, you’ve only been subjected to his tormenting for two years. Imagine having to live with him for four,” Arthur said, not taking his eyes off the television.

A hint of hurt washed over Francis’ face before he quickly masked it and leaned over to envelope Arthur in a hug. “Oh, come on lapin! You love me.”

Arthur started to struggle against the French boy’s grip. “Quit that!”

Yao then came back into the room carrying a plate of pizza bites.

“Francis let go of Arthur. You know you’re not supposed to touch anyone without their permission first,” Yao chided. “And you,” he turned to look at Gilbert who had Ludwig pinned to the floor, “stop fighting with your brother.”

“How do you know it was me who started it?” Gilbert demanded.

“Because I know you and I know your brother, now go on!” Yao waved his hand, gesturing for them to get off the floor. Gilbert got off Ludwig and helped him back up.

“Good, now who wants to help me bring in the other snacks I’ve made?”

Elizabeta, Antonio, and Mathew got up from their seats.

As Mathew started to follow the other three towards the kitchen Alfred grabbed onto his sleeve.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, “how am I supposed to stay awake if you aren’t here to talk to me?”

“Don’t worry, you could always talk to Kiku. Not to mention there are seven other people here,” Mathew reassured before he turned and left.

Alfred crossed his arms and pouted. Kiku was currently playing on his DS, trying to defeat a boss level, so he couldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t talk to anyone else either. Francis, Arthur, and Gilbert were annoying, he hated Ivan, and he didn’t know Iryna, Natalia, or Ludwig that well.

Just as he was about to stretch out on the couch, he felt someone tug on his ear.

“Ow!” he cried, “what was that for?” He turned to see Ivan who was clad in his own pair of pajamas along with his favourite scarf standing in front of him.

“I heard you say that you were trying to stay up until midnight and saw that you were drifting off, so I thought I’d help you.”

“Ya, but did you have to do it by PULLING MY EAR?”

“I was just trying to help,” Ivan growled.

“Ya well, you did a poor job of it!”

“You do realize that if you start fighting Yao won’t let either of you eat any of the snacks?” Arthur interrupted before they could start throwing punches. “And I heard that he was going to make sugar cookies and zefir.”

Ivan backed away while Alfred uncurled his fists. He didn’t know what zeph-something was, but he knew that Ivan didn’t want to miss out on them, and he himself didn’t want to miss out on sugar cookies. Ivan went back over to his sisters without saying a word and Alfred also remained silent, choosing to watch TV to help calm himself down.

Francis turned to Arthur. “Do you know what else Yao is making?”

“If he’s making zefir for Ivan, Natalia, and Iryna then is he making something for the rest of us?” Gilbert asked.

“I don’t know everything he’s making.” Arthur scowled. “I just heard him talking to Kiku about what snacks he was planning.”

“So,” Gilbert coaxed, “what did you hear?”

“I heard that he was making pizza bites.” He gestured to the plate of them on the table. “As well as sugar cookies, zefir, macrons, and I heard something about brownies.”

Alfred started to tune them out, not really interested in their conversation anymore. If only Mathew was back, or Kiku wasn’t busy with his game, then he’d have someone to talk to. Or maybe if something interesting was on besides Doctor Who. Why couldn’t Arthur have chosen something different to watch?

He started to daydream about being a superhero. Saving the day, fighting bad guys. He was just about to defeat the big bad guy when someone shoved his shoulder.

He looked up only to get a fist in the face.

“Ow!” he exclaimed.

Apparently, in the short time he hadn’t been paying attention Francis and Gilbert had started to fight about something and were now actively wrestling on the couch. Arthur had had the right idea and had moved to sit on the floor near Kiku.

“Are you just in the mood to get beaten tonight or what?” Francis asked as he tried to shove Gilbert off him.

“As if I’d let you win!” Gilbert declared before he grabbed a handful of Francis’ hair.

“Ow, you asshole that hurt!” Francis then grabbed Gilbert’s ear and pulled on it.

Alfred quickly got up and off the couch and moved to take Gilbert’s old spot on the arm of one of the chairs.

“Why’re they fighting anyway?” he asked Ludwig.

“Gilbert insulted Francis saying something like he wasn’t even that attractive. And then when Francis asked if he wanted to fight he flung himself on him.” Ludwig shrugged. “I think he’s just in one of his weird moods where he wants to fight everyone.”

Alfred couldn’t deny that. He didn’t blame Gilbert though, sometimes he got in that mood too and would pick a fight with anyone willing to fight back. Usually, he went for Ivan since he didn’t like him anyways, but sometimes he went after Arthur, or Gilbert, or even the rare case of Mathew.

Ivan then walked over and pulled Gilbert back by his ear so that he was no longer on the couch above Francis but now standing.

“Maybe you should stop picking fights with people before something bad happens,” Ivan threatened.

Gilbert shook in his place. “Ya, sure sorry. I just was in the mood to get some wrestling in you know?”

“Yes, well I think that you got enough, da?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Ivan let go of Gilbert’s ear and he quickly scrambled back to his chair.

Alfred quickly moved without a fuss and went back to his own spot.

Just then Yao came back into the room carrying brownies, followed by Mathew, Antonio, and Elizabeta carrying their own plates. The three other plates had what looked like small, colourful hamburgers, something that resembled little balls of whipped cream, and… was that vegetables and fruit?

“Why’d you bring out that?” Alfred wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I thought we were only having tasty stuff.”

Yao sighed, “I’m putting out some healthy food so that you will eat at least something good for you to prevent yourselves from getting sick. And I do expect everyone to take at least a few of the vegetables and fruits.”

There were a few groans and noises of complaints until Yao crossed his arms and gave a meaningful glare. He then headed back into the kitchen with Mathew and Elizabeta trailing behind. Antonio was about to follow them as well, but Francis grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Come sit,” he pleaded.

“But Yao still wants my help.”

“He has Mathew and Elizabeta, he should be fine.”

It looked like Antonio was about to protest again when Francis said, “plus I’ve just experienced a traumatic experience. Gilbert attracted me and pulled my hair! I need comfort.”

“I didn’t pull your hair that hard you baby,” Gilbert quipped from his spot.

“Yes, you did you brute!”

Gilbert shrugged and then proceeded to ignore them.

Francis gave Antonio the most pleading face he could muster. “Please Tonio.”

Antonio sighed. “Fine.”

Francis urged Arthur to shuffle towards Alfred and Francis shuffled over to make room for Antonio on the other end of the couch.

Alfred realized something. “Wait what about Mathew? He was sitting here.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll move when he gets back,” Antonio reassured.

Just then the three walked back into the room holding more plates of food.

Francis started to laugh as Antonio pouted.

“I guess I’ll move.” Antonio started to get up when Mathew interrupted him.

“You don’t have to get up, I’ll just sit on the floor.” He set down his plate, which had gingerbread cookies with sugar on them.

“Lebkuchen!” Gilbert shouted and dove towards Mathew’s plate to grab some of the cookies.

Mathew sat down by his feet and said, “you better not try and put your smelly feet in my face.”

Alfred rolled his eyes but ignored him. “Hey, I could braid your hair.”

“Do you even know how?”

“No,” he admitted.

Elizabeta came over to the table and set down a plate of sugar cookies and Yao set down his plate of tarts and some paper plates.

Everyone grabbed a paper plate and stacked up on their favourite treats along with some fruits and vegetables.

Alfred could see that Mathew was currently eating some of the colourful little hamburgers.

“What are those anyways?”

Mathew looked up. “Oh, they’re called macrons. They’re made of two cookies with icing in the middle.”

“So, they’re like Oreos?”

“No, they are not like Oreos,” Francis snorted, “Oreos are much crunchier, not to mention not as delicious.”

Alfred reached to grab a pink one for himself and took a bite. Francis was right, they were better, they were much more flavourful and didn’t leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

“Wow, this is good!”

“See I told you.”

After he had eaten his fair share of sweets (as well as some of the healthy snacks Yao had forced them to eat) he decided to lay his head against the arm of the couch and watch TV until the ball dropped.

After a few minutes, he closed his eyes. _I’ll just rest for a bit before getting back up, it should be fine._

****

29

28

27

Mathew shook Alfred’s leg, the only thing he could reach from his position on the floor. “Al, the countdown’s starting.”

26

25

“Al?” he looked at his brother’s face to see that his eyes were closed, and his breathing had evened out. He had fallen asleep.

24

He started to shake him again, hoping to rouse him.

23

22

21

“Come on Alfred, I know you don’t want to miss this.”

20

19

18

17

16

15

Apparently, he would need to think of something else to wake him up. He looked over to see Alfred wasn’t the only one to have fallen asleep.

14

Antonio was resting his head against Francis’ shoulder and Gilbert and Ludwig were leaning against each other on the chair, also passed out.

13

Arthur was still awake, maybe he’d have some advice. “Arthur.”

12

“Yes?”

“Alfred fell asleep and I was trying to shake him awake but it didn’t work. Do you have any ideas?”

11

“I can think of a few, such as pouring water on him, but I don’t think you’d want to do that.”

“No. Thanks anyway.”

10

“Ten” those of them who were awake chanted.

9

“Nine” Antonio was startled awake by Francis chanting right near his ear.

Maybe it would wake Alfred up too.

8

He leaned close to his brother and said “eight” along with everyone else.

7

“Seven”

Nothing.

6

“Six” Gilbert was also startled into consciousness and woke Ludwig. Almost everyone was now awake and chanting beside Alfred.

5

“Five”

4

“Four”

Mathew tried once again to wake Alfred, to no avail. “Wake up Alfie.”

3

“Three”

2

“Two”

1

“One! Happy New Year!” Everyone blew into their noisemakers and some even cheered. He saw Francis pull Gilbert and Antonio into a group hug, obviously forgiving Gilbert for the fight he had started earlier. Ivan and his sisters were happily talking away and Mathew was glad to see Ivan genuinely smiling.

Mathew sighed. “Happy New Year Alfred.” Despite all the noise everyone had made, and Gilbert was continuing to make, Alfred was still snoring away.

“I hope 2007 treats you well.”


	5. Silver is for Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kiku, do you have any kings?” Mathew asked. While all of them would prefer to be able to go outside, it was nice to play a quiet game indoors for once.
> 
> “No, go-”
> 
> “Tis I the mighty Alfred,” a voice declared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter is so short I decided to post it alongside Chapter 4: Black is for Nighttime.
> 
> Ages: Alfred 8, Mathew 10, Arthur 11, Ludwig 7, Kiku 14, Gilbert 12, Francis 12, Antonio 12

**September 2007**

“Mathew do you have any threes?”

“Go fish,” Mathew replied. Arthur then sighed and picked up a card from the deck.

Normally on a Saturday they would be playing outside but seeing how it was cold and raining everyone was forced to stay inside. Unless they wanted to get sick. This was how Mathew, Arthur, Kiku, and Ludwig had ended up sitting together in the quiet room playing Go Fish.

“Kiku, do you have any kings?” Mathew asked. While all of them would prefer to be able to go outside, it was nice to play a quiet game indoors for once.

“No, go-”

“Tis I the mighty Alfred,” a voice declared. All four of them looked over to the doorway where Alfred was standing wearing a red cape around his shoulders, a paper crown on his head, and holding one of the Styrofoam swords that Yao had gotten for them from the dollar store.

“Alfred what-?” Mathew tried to ask before Alfred decided to stand on the table, messing up their game of cards.

“Don’t worry Mattie, I’ll slay the dragons and save all of you!”

“What dragons?” Arthur questioned.

At that moment they heard an additional three voices roaring and growling, before seeing Gilbert, Francis, and Antonio come out from behind the wall and into the room. All three of them had green marker scribbled on their faces and green paper wings taped to their backs.

“Did you idiots really-?”

Gilbert then interrupted Arthur with a loud roar and all four of them started to run about the room.

“At least it was quiet for a little while,” Kiku sighed as he set down his hand.

“I’m the hero!” Alfred yelled as he charged past Mathew and almost knocked him over.

“Be careful,” Ludwig said as he helped Mathew righten himself, “you could hurt someone.”

Gilbert stopped running and slipped away from his friends to head back towards the table. As he reached his destination he picked Ludwig up, being careful not to destroy the wings he had spent several minutes making. Ludwig didn’t protest as his brother put him on his back and was now forced to be given a piggyback ride. This didn’t mean he wasn’t curious as to what he was up to though.

“Bruder?”

“I have found our evil master, who until now has been in hiding. For us to be defeated you’ll have to catch him brave hero.” Gilbert then dashed to the other side of the room, Ludwig still on his back.

“I should have known that a bunch of dragons couldn’t have been smart enough to make this evil plan alone,” Alfred exclaimed. “I guess I’ll just have fight harder!” He raised his sword above his head before racing towards the two brothers.

Mathew laughed at the scene, pausing when he felt arms loosely wrap around his chest.

“You’ll have to fight me first unless you want your precious Mathew to die a terrible death,” Francis said. He then coaxed Mathew to stand up and inch towards the exit.

“Oh no save me brave hero,” Mathew tried mimicking a pleading voice but failed as he was trying to prevent himself from giggling.

“Mattie I’m coming.” Alfred turned on his heels away from Gilbert and Ludwig towards the doorway and barreled towards them with a loud cry.

“I guess we’re done then,” Arthur sighed throwing down his cards in exasperation.


	6. Dull Yellow is for Caution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’re you guys doing? You know you’re not supposed to fight on school grounds!”
> 
> “That’s rich coming from you,” Elizabeta sneered.
> 
> He decided it was best to ignore her.
> 
> Ivan then struggled out of his grip and gave him a very nasty looking scowl. “Stay out of this!”
> 
> “Is that another one of your orphan friends coming to save your ass?” the kid asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did attempt to get this chapter posted as soon as I could, but I couldn't get past the writers block. I might end up coming back and editing it later because I'm not really satisfied with it, but then again I might also just leave it since I'm getting frustrated with this chapter. I also want you to know that I'm not sure when the next update will be but I won't be abandoning this fic. I'm too stubborn to do that.
> 
> There will now be the characters ages in the notes for each chapter because I just realized I never mentioned them except for Arthur and they could all be the same age for all you know!
> 
> Ages: Iryna 13, Ivan 12, Alfred 8, Mathew 10, Gilbert 13, Elizabeta 11, Ludwig 8, Antonio 14, Francis 13

**February 2008**

Alfred made sure he had a firm grip of the monkey bars with both his legs and his hands before he swung himself upside down. He didn’t want to break his arm a second time.

Since it was a Wednesday him and Mathew were at school instead of at the orphanage like they normally would be. Despite what kids assumed, they did have to attend an actual school and get an education. Not to mention Yao didn’t have a teaching degree, and even if he did, he couldn’t teach all of them, not when their ages ranged from 8 to 15.

“Whoa Mattie! How’re you floating in mid air like that?” He asked before laughing at his own joke.

Mathew rolled his eyes. “Ha ha.”

Just as he was about to make a comment, he thought he saw someone get a punch to the face.

“What?” Alfred asked himself as he got back upright and turned to properly see what was happening. He was used to seeing fights break out at the orphanage, but at school they didn’t usually occur. This was mainly because if a teacher caught you fighting, you’d get sent to the office and your parent/guardian would have to come down to the school. And nobody wanted that.

Mathew gave Alfred a questioning look before glancing over his shoulder to see what he was looking at and his eyes widened in shock. Half way across the field Ivan currently had some kid in a head lock, while Elizabeta was kicking his legs and two other boys and Iryna stood off to the side watching them.

As soon as he realized what was happening Mathew bolted down the monkey bars and ran over to where they were.

“He- wait up Mathew!” Alfred called as he quickly followed his brother.

By the time they’d gotten there a small crowd had already formed and they had to push their way through.

“Ivan, Elizabeta stop!” Mathew yelled. Either they didn’t hear him, or they chose to ignore him as both Ivan and Elizabeta continued to swing punches and kicks at the other kid.

Mathew turned to Alfred. “Can you get them to stop? I don’t want them getting into trouble with Yao.”

Alfred sighed. He didn’t really want to get into the middle of this, but his brother was worried, and he liked Elizabeta. _Hopefully this ends quickly._

He then walked into the chaos and pushed Elizabeta away form the kid and pulled Ivan back by the scruff of his scarf.

“What’re you guys doing? You know you’re not supposed to fight on school grounds!”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Elizabeta sneered.

He decided it was best to ignore her.

Ivan then struggled out of his grip and gave him a very nasty looking scowl. “Stay out of this!”

“Is that another one of your orphan friends coming to save your ass?” the kid asked.

Alfred then looked the kid up and down. He looked about Ivan’s age, which was probably why he had never met him. He had messy black hair and brown eyes, not to mention a disgusting amount of acne covering his face. Alfred wrinkled his nose in disgust, _does this guy ever wash his face?_

“So, what if I am an orphan? Is that why Ivan and Elizabeta decided to beat the crap out of you?” Alfred asked. It wasn’t uncommon for any one of them to go a day without some obnoxious kid commenting on how they had no parents, which would mean if this was the reason the two were fighting the kid it was a pretty stupid reason to be doing so.

“They’re just angry cause I pointed out that their friend has tits the size of watermelons.” The guy smirked then threw his head back in obnoxious laughter.

_Wait, you mean to tell me their fighting him because he was being a total douche bag to Iryna because her breasts are “too big”? The nicest girl I’ve ever met? Fuck trying to stop them from getting into trouble I’m helping them!_

“I’ve changed my mind, I am no longer interested in stopping this fight. I am more interested in PLOWING YOUR FACE INTO THE DIRT!” Before the jerk could react, Alfred slammed him to the ground and pinned his wrists above his head.

“You guys wanna help me beat the crap out of him?” He asked.

Mathew covered his face and sighed. After hearing the reason behind this whole thing, he wanted to see the rude kid get punished, but he also didn’t want his friends to get into trouble.

Gilbert then pushed through the crowd followed by Francis, Antonio, and Ludwig. “What the hell are they doing? I mean I love a good fight, but they’re just asking for it.”

“Should we try stopping them?” Antonio wondered absentmindedly as he watched their three friends take turns taking shots.

“Do you want me to try and separate them?” Ludwig asked Mathew, he assumed that he wouldn’t want to get into the middle of the fight, but he personally had no problem with it.

“I don’t think it’ll do anything. I already asked Alfred too but once he found out what the guy said about Iryna he joined them.” Mathew shrugged.

Francis leaned in closer to Mathew to whisper, “what did he say?”

“He made fun of her breast size.”

“Travis did what?” Gilbert implored. “Alright,” he then started to take his mittens and scarf off before shoving them into Antonio’s chest, “I’m coming to help!” He then walked towards the commotion.

“Gilbert!” Ludwig groaned.

“It’ll be fine West!”

“Yao’s going to have a field day when he finds out that four of his kids beat up some brat while five others watched,” Francis noted.

“What on earth is going on!” Apparently, a teacher had finally seen what was happening and had come over to stop the situation. She pulled the kids apart before repeating her question.

“Oh, come on! I didn’t even get to hit him once!” Gilbert complained.

“Zip it you!” The teacher commanded. “Now all of you will be coming with me to the principal’s office and we’ll be calling your parents to have a very _long_ discussion.”

“That’ll be easy since four of the five of us share a guardian,” Alfred spoke up.

The teacher had a confused look on her face as she looked over the five of them to see little to no resemblance.

“We’re from Orchid Orphanage,” Gilbert supplied.

“Ah that makes sense,” the teacher mutter darkly to herself.

All of them bristled angrily at the comment except for Travis and the few remaining kids that had chosen to continue watching the disaster unfold.

“Now come along.” She started to head towards the school with all ten of them following.

From anyone else’s point of view the scene would be amusing. Ten children, all different ages following a teacher through the halls during recess, five of whom were dirty and beaten.

Travis stayed by the teacher’s side while the rest of them trailed a bit behind.

“What’re we going to do? Yao’s going to kill you guys!” Mathew worried.

“I wouldn’t care as much if I had only managed to get at least one good hit in!” Gilbert whispered harshly.

Alfred scoffed, “whatever, at least he’ll think twice before he makes fun of Iryna again!”

Antonio then turned to look at Iryna. “Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet.”

Iryna didn’t look up as she replied, “I just feel as if it’s my fault.”

Ivan quickly made his way over to her. “No, if it’s anyone’s fault it’s his! He shouldn’t have said those things about you!”

“But they’re true.”

“You might have bigger breasts, but that doesn’t mean you’re ugly,” Elizabeta stated, “don’t let his lies get to you. You’re the prettiest girl I know!”

“Really?” Iryna sniffed as she wiped her tears away.

“Of course, you are! I bet you could be a model with looks as good as yours,” Francis complemented.

Iryna blushed in embarrassment and cover her face with her left hand.

“Not to mention you’re super nice,” Alfred gushed, “not only is your outside beautiful, but so is your inside.”

Alfred thought it was so great that everyone of them was helping to make Iryna feel better. Even though almost none of them could stand Ivan and his rude behaviour, that wouldn’t stop them from helping him make his sister feel good about herself.

The teacher noticed their lagging behind and said, “hurry up, we should be there any minute.”

They sped up so that they were no longer walking so far behind her. This caused her to notice the extra kids following her.

“What are you four doing here? You’re supposed to be outside.”

“We wanted to make sure our friends were okay,” Antonio replied.

“You’ll be able to talk to them later, now go back outside.”

“We’re from the orphanage too,” Francis said, “and we knew our caretaker would want us to tell him what we saw as well.”

Mathew was afraid that she would force them to go back out, which he didn’t think he could live with. He wouldn’t be able to see what happened to Alfred, he wouldn’t be able to help him from getting angry and making defensive comments to the principle, and he wouldn’t get to know if they had been fair and punished the Travis kid too.

But thankfully the teacher seemed to realize that it would be useless to try and force them to leave, so she didn’t bother. “Fine, but don’t be surprised if you’re made to return outside.”

It was just a few more steps before they got to the main office and all of them piled in.

The teacher went up to the secretary. “Hello, I need to speak to…”

Mathew tuned out the conversation between the two, thinking about what could happen. The most likely path was everyone who was in the fight would get suspended for a few days and Yao would punish them on top of that with no sweets or electronic for a week. It was also possible that Gilbert could be exempt from suspension, if the principle believed his story of not even getting to hit Travis once. Although that was unlikely considering his attitude.

“Mattie,” Alfred whispered. It appeared as if they were heading into the back where students weren’t permitted. Matthew immediately followed after them, realizing that they had to go into the back where students weren’t usually permitted.

He hesitatingly stepped over the invisible line knowing that doing this was a big deal. Kids didn’t go back here unless they were bad. Except him. As soon as he set his foot down it was like he had stepped foot into another world. He couldn’t help but study as much as he possibly could as they made their way down the hall. He had to make sure he remembered what it looked like.

The teacher opened the door to show a big room with a bunch of pictures on the walls framed in fancy looking frames and a big wooden desk with a man sitting at it.

The man, who Mathew assumed was the principle looked directly at Gilbert, Antonio, and Francis and sighed. “What have you three done this time?”

“Antonio and Francis didn’t do anything,” Gilbert admitted, “technically I didn’t either but…” and he shrugged.

“These three have caused trouble before?” The teacher asked surprised.

“Yes, they were the ones who started that huge paint throwing fight. They were suspended for a week.”

“Oh ya, I remember that, it took like four days for the purple to get out of Francis’ hair,” Alfred recalled.

Francis smirked. “Gilbert looked like he had dyed his hair green and blue and it stayed that way for a week.”

“It made me happy that my hair is brown.” Antonio smiled and ran his fingers through his hair.

The principle silenced them with a wave of his hand. “So, did all ten of you get involved in this fight?”

“No sir,” the teacher said, “only half of them were involved, the others insisted they tag alone.”

Mathew noticed the name tag on the principle’s desk said Mr. Brown. So that was his name.

Mr. Brown looked them all over before he went to type on his computer. “All of you, excluding Travis are from the orphanage, correct?”

“Yep,” Alfred said, popping the ‘p’.

He hummed before asking, “and the name of your guardian is Yao Wang?”

“Yes,” Ivan answered.

Mr. Brown continued to type away, then turned to the teacher that had escorted them in. “Mrs. Chaser, thank you for informing me of the situation and bringing the children here, but I can handle things from here now.”

Mrs. Chaser nodded and replied, “you’re welcome sir.” And immediately left. Mathew looked up at the clock to see that the bell would be ringing soon. He hoped that his teacher wasn’t too angry at him for missing that math quiz.

It was silent from then on, with only the noise of the principle quietly talking on the phone, either with Yao or one of Travis’ parents.

Mathew once again looked around the office, knowing that he would get into trouble if he spoke with any of his friends.

It felt like forever before both Yao and Travis’ dad showed up, but it probably wasn’t as long as it felt. Mathew briefly thought of what would happen if his parents had still been alive. Would they have shown up sooner or would they have failed to show up at all because of work? He couldn’t really say because he didn’t know what they’re job had been, but now when he thought back to everything that had happened, he was pretty sure that it had been the reason that they had gotten arrested.

Yao came in first and he was fuming. The only reason he was controlling himself was because Travis and Mr. Brown were present, or else he would turn into ‘The Dragon’ as they liked to call him and unleash all his anger on them.

“What were you thinking, fighting on school grounds? You know it’s wrong and that you would get punished!”

“We were just defending Iryna!” Elizabeta countered.

Then Travis’s father came in, he was much taller than Yao and appeared to be wearing fancy clothes meant for the office, compare to Yao who was only wearing simple clothing.

Mathew hopped he wasn’t like some parents who thought the world of their kids and thought they could do no wrong. He hated those adults, they were annoying, and their kids were jerks. Not that Travis hadn’t made it clear that he was a jerk.

After the adults shook hands and introduced each other Mr. Brown explained what was happening. “Over the phone I explained that your children where found fighting each other on school grounds and that once we were all here, I would give a chance for everyone to explain themselves. So, who’s going first?”

Both Alfred and Gilbert raised they hands and started waving them around, hoping to be picked.

“Gilbert you can go first.”

Gilbert fist pumped while Alfred crossed his arms and pouted in defeat.

“Okay, so I was with Francis, Antonio, and Ludwig when I saw this huge crowd forming-”

“I noticed,” Francis corrected.

“K fine Francis saw the crowd. Anyways we go over there to see Ivan, Eliza, and Alfred taking turns beating the shit out of Travis. Then we found out that-”

“Mathew told us,” Ludwig interrupted.

“-that Travis had made fun of Iryna’s breast size, so I got angry because that’s an asshole thing to say-”

“Please refrain from swearing,” Mr. Brown sighed.

“Well it’s true! So, I joined the fight to help teach him a lesson, but I didn’t even get to hit him before Mrs. Chaser pulled us apart! In conclusion I don’t think I should be in trouble because I didn’t do anything!”

The principle nodded. “So, you’re saying you were told that Travis said these things without knowing whether or not they were true?”

Mathew had never seen Gilbert look so shocked. “What? Why would they- why would my friends lie? Especially about that!”

“I’m just saying that you took a lot of faith in your friends’ words.”

Mathew couldn’t believe this. Their principle was defending Travis? He was suggesting that they were liars? Did every adult here hate orphans that much, or was it something else?

Alfred spoke up. “When I got there, I was originally going to break them up, but then Travis _himself_ admitted to making fun of Iryna in front of Mathew, so no Gilbert was not lied to.”

Mathew looked over to Yao to see how he was reacting. He somehow looked angrier than before, but it seemed as if he was no longer angry at them, but at Travis and Mr. Brown.

“Could I hear the story from the beginning from one of you? While it’s important to collect all the details I would like to listen to them in order.”

Ivan slowly raised his hand. “I can tell you.”

Mr. Brown replied, “alright. How did this start?”

“Well, me and Iryna were just walking around and talking, when she accidentally ran into Travis.”

****

_“Watch where you’re going!” the kid growled._

_It was Travis from the other grade 7 class. Ivan didn’t know him very well, but he’d heard that he was an asshole. Guess the rumours were true._

_“I’m sorry,” Iryna apologized. She was looking at her feet and holding her arms close._

_Travis scoffed. “Maybe you should watch where you’re going instead of looking at the ground.”_

_“It was a mistake, just let it go,” Ivan said. He didn’t want to do this, he just wanted to leave and continue talking to his sister about what he was doing in class. He didn’t want to have to deal with some guy who thought the world of himself._

_“Why should I?”_

_“Hey Iryna, need help?” Elizabeta had came up from behind them. Ivan wasn’t too sure where she had come form, but he was glad she was here. She was always very nice to Iryna._

_Iryna looked back up to see Elizabeta smiling at her._

_Travis then started to laugh._

_“What’s so funny?” Ivan asked._

_“Wow, I have never seen boobs that big in my life!” He answered between laughter. “They almost look fake.”_

_Ivan didn’t even stop to think before he punched Travis in the nose._

_Travis stumbled back in shock and held his nose which was now bleeding slightly._

_“What the hell was that for?”_

_“For insulting Iryna!” Ivan then aimed another punch, but the kid managed to dodge it._

_“Wait, you’re some of the kids from the orphanage, right? Wow, it’s cute how all you unwanted losers will stick up for each other.”_

_Elizabeta then kicked his feet out from under him, causing Travis to land on his back._

_“Brave words coming from a kid who never learned how to fight properly,” she said._

_Ivan and Elizabeta kept throwing punches and kicks and Travis tried his best to avoid them. He didn’t bother fighting back, finding the whole situation too funny._

****

After Ivan had finished Elizabeta added, “then a few minutes later Alfred showed up.”

“So, you’re saying my son never did anything wrong?” Travis’ father asked.

“He insulted my child,” Yao fumed. Yao didn’t normally refer to them as his kids, while they knew he loved them he never claimed them as his own, knowing that most of them didn’t view him as a father. Mathew guessed he had been so angry that he hadn’t noticed.

“He was stating a fact.”

“What if I stated that your kids face is ugly?” Gilbert growled. Mathew saw Elizabeta and Francis try and prevent themselves from bursting out in laughter.

“What if I stated you have a dumb accent?” Travis shot back.

“My accent is proof that I’m smart enough to learn more than one language. Can you prove you’re smart enough to do that?”

“Enough! _All_ of you who were involved in the fight will be suspended for two weeks,” Mr. Brown declared.

Travis faltered. “But-”

“And you will also apologize to Iryna.”

Travis grumbled, “fine, I’m sorry.”

Mathew would have personally preferred if he had been sincerer with his apology, but at least Iryna looked happier and Travis wasn’t going to get off without punishment.

After they left Mr. Brown’s office Yao decided to just sign the ten of them out and take them home early, since it was almost the end of the day anyways. Mathew couldn’t help but feel bad for the secretary who had to manually sign ten kids.

Not until later after school had finished did the rest of them return home and came to the living room where they were all watching TV.

Arthur was the first to question them. “Why are you all here? What on earth happened?” He saw the bruises forming on Ivan, Elizabeta, and Alfred. “And why are you all bruised up?”

“We got into a fight with Travis because he made fun of Iryna,” Ivan explained.

“The rest of us watched,” Alfred stated loudly.

“I can’t believe the one day I go to the library and I miss everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was little forbidden places like behind the secretary's desk and into the principle's office were always mysterious places that were much more interesting than anywhere else.  
> The faculty, Travis, and his dad are all OC's because I can't bring myself to make Hetalia characters one dimensional bad guys when they all deserve much better.


	7. Leaf Green is for Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While she usually hated shopping, the idea of getting out and doing something was appealing. It also wasn’t like Yao would let them stay out for too long what with it being a Sunday. Which was good because Francis could shop for hours on end and not even be winded.
> 
> “Sure, it might be fun to see you force Gilbert into different outfits.”
> 
> “He does need some serious fashion help,” Francis agreed. “Arthur are you sure you don’t want to come?”
> 
> Arthur sighed. “Alright, fine, I’ll go. I guess I do need some new t-shirts. All of my old ones no longer fit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Throws chapter at you* Be satisfied you monsters!  
> Anyways I would like you to know that I am half way done the next chapter? Or I've got a couple pages down anyways, so it shouldn't be as long to post it as it did this one.
> 
> Ages: Elizabeta 11, Arthur 12, Alfred 8, Kiku 15, Francis 12, Antonio 13, and Gilbert 13

**May 2008**

Elizabeta wasn’t like other girls.

Not to say that she thought of herself as better, it was just that most girls didn’t hate wearing cute outfits. Or at some point live on the streets.

There were a lot of things that made Elizabeta different; like how she had a period where she pretended to be a boy, so people were less likely to attack her. Or how until recently she hated boys. Or how she used to steal food from the orphanage’s kitchen and hide it in her room in fear that one day they would run out.

Old habits die hard she guessed.

She still had a lot of trouble trusting people. Or well, trusting boys. The girls she knew living in the streets usually either kept to themselves or tried their best to help others like herself. There were very few who were aggressive and vile and stole from her. Not to mention the girls she knew now like Iryna and Natalia from the orphanage, or Julie from school were all very close friends of hers.

The boys who lived in the streets were different from the girls though. They would hurt each other for money and food, and she had to learn pretty quickly how to defend herself because of them. They were different but the same; aggressive and mean and didn’t care about anyone but themselves. She had only known one or two boys who weren’t like that.

The boys at the orphanage were different though. None of them were the same, some of them were quiet while the others were loud, some liked to fight and others didn’t, but that didn’t stop them from being friends. A good example was of Antonio, Gilbert, and Francis, or as Elizabeta and Arthur liked to call them; The Idiot Trio. Antonio was one of the sweetest boys Elizabeta had ever met, Francis was caring but also sometimes irritating, and Gilbert, well Gilbert was the embodiment of arrogance. Despite this though they all got along and loved causing trouble together as well as doing other more less thrilling things like playing would you rather or taking quizzes from teen magazines.

Just then Arthur came into the room, interrupting her thoughts. She looked up and made eye contact with him.

“Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just wanted to see if I could find something new to read,” Arthur apologized.

It was strange how their relationship worked. Both were snappy with others and had a short temper, but with each other they were civil and even enjoyed being together. Although it was usually just them talking about how annoying Gilbert and Francis were.

“It’s fine, I couldn’t concentrate on reading anyways,” she said.

“If you don’t mind my asking, is everything alright?” Arthur questioned.

“Oh, I was just thinking is all.”

“If you say so.” Arthur then headed further into the room to look for his new book.

Eliza set down her book and followed him. “I’m not just saying that because I don’t want to talk.”

Arthur gave her a look over his shoulder that said he wasn’t convinced.

She sighed. “I’m not lying! I was only thinking of how The Idiot Trio are all so different yet still manage to be friends and how we are so hot headed to everyone else but each other. That’s all.”

“If you think about it there are a lot of strange groups in this place,” Arthur stated.

“Like who?”

“Well Alfred and Kiku are a good example, Alfred’s extroverted and loud, Kiku prefers to be alone and is quiet. Not to mention Alfred is 8 and Kiku is 15. Then there’s you and Iryna. If someone is mean to her, she cries, if someone is mean to you, you fight back,” Arthur listed.

Elizabeta nodded. “Then there’s you and Mathew, he tries his hardest to be nice to everyone, while you aren’t afraid to speak your mind.”

“Exactly.”

After Arthur had found himself a book to read, the two of them headed outside to sit under the tree and enjoy the warm weather. Elizabeta had brought her own book, but still couldn’t concentrate. She wasn’t much of a book person, she would much prefer to be running around in the mud, or climbing up the monkey bars then reading, but she also wanted to spend time with Arthur, and he wanted to read.

It wasn’t so bad though, sometimes it was nice to sit and admire the scenery. You could watch the birds flying from place to place, how the clouds looked like different animals in the sky, listen to- oh who was she kidding this was boring! She needed to get up and move!

“Hello,” greeted a voice from above them, once again interrupting her thoughts. The two of them looked up and saw that it was Francis.

Arthur went back to reading his book. “What do you want?”

“Yao is driving me and Gilbert to the mall and he wanted to see if anyone else wanted to go,” Francis said.

“I’m not much of a shopping person and plus I don’t need anything,” Arthur replied.

“What about you Elizabeta?”

While she usually hated shopping, the idea of getting out and doing something was appealing. It also wasn’t like Yao would let them stay out for too long what with it being a Sunday. Which was good because Francis could shop for hours on end and not even be winded.

“Sure, it might be fun to see you force Gilbert into different outfits.”

“He does need some serious fashion help,” Francis agreed. “Arthur are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Arthur sighed. “Alright, fine, I’ll go. I guess I do need some new t-shirts. All of my old ones no longer fit.”

Francis’ faced lit up. “Then I could-”

“If you try and play dress up with me, you’ll be dead frog!” Arthur warned.

Francis shrugged and turned to leave. “Oh, you’re no fun lapin!”

“Stop calling me a rabbit!”

The two continued to bicker as they made their way back in through the building. It was kind of amusing to watch. Sometimes Eliza thought they acted like an old couple who had been married for years. She had jokingly mentioned it to Arthur once, who had gotten flustered and said they were nothing like that.

Even if they never ended up getting married, she was positive they would still end up in the same nursing home together and continue to nitpick each other for the rest of time.

Once they finished walking through the hallway and exited through the front door, they saw Yao standing by the car. As they walked over their caretaker took notice of them.

“Okay so are all of you ready?” he asked.

They all nodded, they had grabbed their money before heading outside.

“Alright good, Gilbert and Antonio are already in the car.”

They then climbed into the minivan, taking up the three middle seats, as Antonio and Gilbert were already sitting in the back.

“You’re so far away,” Francis pouted as he reached his hand back.

Antonio grabbed it, as it was closest to him. “Don’t worry, I’ll never let go!”

Gilbert then grabbed both their hands with his own. “Spending some time apart will only strengthen our bond!” He then snorted and the other two laughed. Arthur rolled his eyes and turned away from the scene.

They arrived at the mall with minimal injuries (Gilbert had decided it was a good idea to try and pull her pony tail) and without bugging Yao too much (years of living with kids had made him duller towards most fights).

Once Yao had parked the car he turned around and told them, “you are all to stay together. I don’t care if you don’t want to go into that store or whatever. Also don’t take an hour to look at clothes when everyone else wants to move on,” that part was obviously directed towards Francis, “I’ll have my cell phone on me if you need to call and I’ll be picking up at this entrance at 5. Okay?”

All of them agreed and left the van. They crossed over to the entrance to the mall and saw Yao drive away.

Francis clapped his hands together. “Where should we go first?”

****

They had ended up going to some clothing store first, as everyone needed new clothes for the summer. Although Eliza was sure she wasn’t going to find much of anything, since mostly everything in the girl’s section seemed really fancy or pretty.

“What do you need from here again?” she asked Francis.

“All my clothes for important occasions no longer fit,” he answered as he looked through a display of pants.

“Why wouldn’t you just wait then? There’s nothing important coming up.”

Francis turned to look at her and gave her a confused look. “You do know your birthday is next month, right?”

She shrugged. “You don’t need to dress up for that.”

He gasped. “Of course, I do! It’s an important day after all!”

“Wasn’t that important to my parents,” she grumbled.

Nothing was said for a moment until Francis spoke softly, “well it’s important to us.”

They continued to look through the clothes, Eliza only finding shirts with too much colour or too many frills. As she moved to look through another rack of shirts, Francis suddenly grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards the changing rooms.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, he just continued to pull her through the store. He finally let go of her hand once they made it to the changing rooms and called out, “Antonio, Gilbert, come here I have something for you!”

Two doors opened revealing the two friends. While Gilbert was fully dressed, Antonio only had his jeans on.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” she asked.

Antonio shrugged. “I was just taking it off as Francis called and I knew he’d get huffy if I took my time. I also don’t really care if anyone see’s me without one.”

“Well whatever, here,” he handed them each a set of clothes, “put these on and then let me have a look.”

“They aren’t like really frilly girly things, are they?” Gilbert wondered.

Francis scoffed. “No, now just go! If you take longer than Arthur, then he’ll complain.”

The boys went back into their rooms and presumably started changing into the outfits Francis had gotten them.

Elizabeta noticed that he still had something resting over his arm.

“Who’s that for?”

Francis held up a light green dress with a white bow around the waist.

“I saw it and I thought it would suit you,” he said.

She grimaced. “I’m not really a dress kind of girl.”

“I know, but why don’t you just give it a try? You might find you like it.”

It couldn’t hurt and she would be less bored getting dressed than standing here doing nothing. “Alright.” She took the dress from him and headed into one of the changing rooms. It took her a few minutes to get the back zipped up (and even then, she wasn’t sure if she fully succeeded) but she managed. She paused before taking her hair out of her pony tail and stepped out of the changing room.

When she stepped out, she saw Gilbert looking miserable as Francis fixed his bow tie which he was wearing with a white button up shirt and dress pants.

“Are you planning something and that’s why you forced all of us to get into fancy clothes?” she asked.

Both turned to look at her. Gilbert’s eyebrows rose in shock before a light blush covered his cheeks and he looked away. Francis then came over with a big grin on his face.

“You look beautiful Eliza! Do you like it?”

It was strange but she did actually like the way it looked and felt. She had never worn one before, had always assumed they would be uncomfortable, but…

“I do, but I can’t wear it.”

“Why not?” Both Gilbert and Francis asked at the same time.

“If I wear a dress people won’t take me as seriously and girls who fight don’t wear dresses.”

Gilbert walked over towards them. “Try and hit me.”

“What?” she asked.

“Try and hit me,” he repeated. “Come on I can-” he was cut off as she punched him hard in the chest. “ow!”

“What was the point of that.” Elizabeta smiled. “Except that I’m much happier now.”

“To prove that you can still fight even with a dress on,” Gilbert replied, still hugging his chest.

“Look Elizabeta,” Francis said, “what you wear doesn’t define you. Any girl can wear dresses and still fight. Just like I can wear necklaces and colourful clothes and still like playing football with Gilbert and Antonio. So, if you like the dress, wear it. If not, then don’t.”

She thought for a moment. It was true, Natalia wore dresses all the time and would always get into fights with kids at school, and most of the time she won. There were also a lot of boys who didn’t wear dresses and couldn’t throw a punch to save their lives. Plus, if any jerk was dumb enough to question her ability to get rough and dirty, then she could gladly prove them wrong.

“I think I’ll get it,” she announced.

Arthur then came out of the change room holding an assortment of black clothes.

“Please don’t tell me you’re actually going to buy those? At least your old ugly sweater vests have colour!” Francis cringed.

“Weren’t you the one who said black goes with everything?” Arthur questioned.

“Well yes, but-”

“Then you can’t complain.”

Antonio came out of his dressing room wearing a similar outfit to that of Gilbert’s, but his shirt was a deep red.

“I really like this outfit!” he exclaimed as he twirled around in a circle.

“You like anything that’s red,” Arthur scoffed.

“So, will you two be buying them?” Francis asked.

Gilbert who was playing with the cuff of his shirt answered, “ya I like it. Do you have your own so all three of us match?”

Francis nodded. “I was thinking of getting the same but the shirt in blue to match my eyes.”

“Just don’t take too long,” Arthur said, “I’m going to go to the check out and wait by the entrance for you.”

****

By the time they had changed back into their clothes, payed for their new outfits, and gotten out of the store, Arthur was grumpy.

“Thank God! Did you crawl through the store to get to the cash?” Arthur asked.

Elizabeta smirked. “No but we did do everything in slow motion.”

Gilbert snorted and then full on laughed, while Francis and Antonio chuckled quietly to themselves. Arthur gave her a look before rolling his eyes and giving a small smile.

“Come on let’s go. We’ve already been here for half-an-hour and we’ve only gone into one store,” Arthur complained as he turned around and started walking.

They all followed after him.

“That’s not _that_ long,” Francis argued.

“Maybe not for you, but for any sane person who doesn’t like shopping for hours on end, it is!” Arthur retaliated.

Elizabeta ignored them as she looked in the store windows and entrances. As they were walking by one store, she noticed a cute hair clip in the window. She paused to look at it more closely and saw that the flower hair clip was only a few dollars.

“Hey guys I-” she turned to see that the four boys hadn’t noticed that she had stopped and had continued on. Now she was alone and had no idea where they were.

“Arthur!” she called, “Francis! Gilbert… Guys?” It appeared that they were too far ahead of her to hear her.

This wasn’t good. What if Yao found out and she got in trouble? What if they didn’t find her before closing and she had to sleep outside? What if someone kidnapped her? What if she never saw her home again? What if-?

 _Calm down! Don’t get crazy, you’ll be fine! You just need to remember what Yao said to do if we get lost…_ Elizabeta briefly recalled that he had said something about finding an information desk or a customer service. Then they would make an announcement for who she had been with to come and get her. That would be embarrassing, but it outweighed being forgotten here.

Well she had no idea where she was or where the information desk was so she would have to walk around until she found a map. She nodded to herself before heading in the direction her and her friends had been walking in a few moments ago.

 _Hey, maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll only be a few feet ahead of me,_ she thought.

Once she got to the end of the hallway where it then split into three ways, she found a map. She quickly approached it.

“Okay so I have to go left then right. Shouldn’t be too hard,” she mumbled to herself.

“Hey, are you lost?” someone asked from behind her.

Elizabeta turned around and saw a teenage boy, probably about 16 or 17, staring down at her. She couldn’t tell if he was asking to be nice or if he had ulterior motives.

She decided to play it safe anyways. “No, I just needed to double check where I’m meeting up with my friend and her dad.”

“So, your alone right now?”

She hesitated before replying, “No… my sister is with me, she’s just browsing while I check the map.”

The boy grabbed both of her wrists. “Really? Is that true?”

She tried to yank her wrists out of his grip, but it was pointless, his grip was too strong.

“Guess what?” Someone said before the guy got a fist to the cheek. The guy let go of Elizabeta as he reached for his face.

“Gilbert!” she cried.

He gave her a goofy grin. “I prefer ‘my knight in shining armor’ or ‘the Awesome Gilbert’ but that’s fine too.”

The guy, clearly pissed at being punched in the face, decided to take revenge by punching Gilbert back. In the nose.

Gilbert cried out in pain before going to grab his nose in shock. Or in pain, considering Elizabeta could see a few drops of blood falling through his fingers onto the floor.

“Ow!”

She then saw Arthur, Francis, and Antonio come running up to them.

“Leave her alone or we’ll call the police on your ass!” Arthur threatened.

The kid looking scared, turned around and walked away.

“You okay Eliza?” Antonio asked.

“Yes, thanks to this idiot over here.” She guested to Gilbert.

“I think my nose is broken,” he answered, voice muffled by his hands which were still covering his nose and mouth.

****

Gilbert had ended up going to the hospital and the doctor had had to reset his nose. Yao had come in, he had been furious, his anger only lessening when Elizabeta had explained what had happened.

Overall though the day hadn’t been that bad. Sure, she was now being punished for not staying with the group and Gilbert was forced to where gauze on his nose for the next few weeks, but she did learn something. Only she could define herself, no one else could, and needing help from time to time from friends, especially boys didn’t make her a damsel in distress.

As for the cute hair-clip she had seen, she eventually went back to the mall and bought it. And she wore it all the time now. Even with her dresses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of Arthur’s goth phase :p. I imagine a few months after this he convinces Yao to let him temporarily dye the tips of his hair purple. He can’t convince Yao to let him wear makeup until he’s 16 though, so he sadly doesn’t wear a shit ton of eyeliner to match his hilarious goth outfits.  
> Btw the magazines I'm referring to are like the ones my sister and her friends used to read that had quizzes like 'which Jonas brother would be your prefect boyfriend' and similar things because the btt might act like they're amazing but really they're just dorks.


	8. Orange is for Distrust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Maybe one of the other kids there will play with me. That would be nice, you always say you’re busy and I’m forced to play alone.” Feliciano turned towards the front and asked Yao, “do any of the kids like to play with toys still? Do they even have toys?”
> 
> Yao laughed. “Yes, they have toys. We may not have as much money as you, but I make sure they get gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. I know that Alfred still plays with his toys and is constantly looking for someone to play with him.” Lovino swore he saw stars appear in Feliciano’s eyes. “Mathew isn’t as interested, but he will play with you if you ask.”
> 
> Lovino bet he would probably be alone again, as he almost always was. Everyone would probably think he was just like his brother and be disappointed when they found out that he was rude and pushy and cold. They would try at first to get closer, but eventually give up when they found out it would take too long. Maybe there would be one persistent person who would try for longer, but they too would give up at some point and he would be all alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! I've managed to post this within *looks at watch* a little over a week since the last one. In this chapter Lovino and Feliciano are introduced and move into the orphanage. I hope you enjoy reading!
> 
> Ages: Lovino 13, Feliciano 12, Alfred 9, Mathew 11, Ludwig 9, Gilbert 14, Kiku 16, Antonio 14, Francis 13, Arthur 13, and Ivan 13

**June 2009**

“My name is Yao Wang, it’s nice to meet you,” the tall man said.

Lovino just crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at the man. His brother on the other hand was happy to reply, “Ciao Mr. Wang! I’m Feliciano and this is Lovino. It’s nice to meet you too.”

Lovino rolled his eyes and scoffed. He wouldn’t call this meeting nice at all, considering the only reason they were meeting this stranger was because he was the head of some orphanage that they were now going to be forced to live at.

If he had known that when his grandfather had been admitted to the hospital that he would die and then he and his younger brother would be pushed off to some care worker then finally to this guy to live the rest of their days in an orphanage (until Lovino turned 18) then he would have snuck out of the hospital the first chance he got and ran away as far as he could.

The only bright side to this was that at least they weren’t going to be living with their dad again.

“You can just call me Yao, everyone does.” Yao smiled.

Lovino’s frown just got bigger. _What does he expect to just smile and then everything will be fine?_

“I’ll be sure to fax you the papers by the end of this week,” their care worker said. _She’s probably relieved that she no longer has to be in my presence anymore._ “I’ll also send you their previous address so that they can get the rest of their stuff.”

He doubted all of their stuff would fit in the orphanage, they probably had tiny rooms that they had to share with like three other people at least. Not to mention the bastards there would likely wreck or steal anything valuable of theirs because they themselves only had one or two toys and wore ratty clothes full of holes. Lovino guessed that all the money went to this guy, which probably wasn’t much considering his suit looked cheap. _It looks like he got it from some department store,_ he thought bitterly.

Feliciano nudged him and whispered, “Lovi don’t be rude. Say something.”

“I have nothing to say,” he whispered back.

“I know this must be hard for you, losing your grandfather and being forced to come live with me and half a dozen other strangers,” Yao sympathized, “but I promise you won’t feel alone at my orphanage. Everyone there is really nice, some show it more than others, but if you get to know them you can learn their kind side. Not to mention there are kids there that have gone through the struggle of losing their last family members as well, they can help you move on.”

Of course, this made his brother start to cry. “Vee, I hope so. I really miss Nonno.”

 _Of course, you do you bastard! You were his favourite!_ Although Lovino had to admit that he missed Nonno too. But only to himself and never out loud.

“I know,” Yao said in a tone meant to comfort Feliciano. He immediately perked back up and started to yammer away.

“Are there any kids our age? Or are they all younger? Are we the oldest? I hope not, I hope there is at least a few kids close to our age.”

“There’s a boy named Mathew who’s your age, and there are a few kids that are Lovino’s age. But I’ll tell you more about it on the ride there if that’s okay.” Yao pulled up the sleeve of his suit and checked his watch. “Yes, we should be leaving now, so come on.”

Feliciano happily skipped after him, while Lovino stayed put.

“You need to follow them,” his old care taker told him.

“I know,” he mumbled to her and started to follow them. He hoped the ride wasn’t too long.

****

“So, will I be the youngest there?” Feliciano asked.

“No, there are a few kids who are younger than you. A boy named Ludwig is the youngest.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s 9, but he’ll be turning 10 in October.”

“Who’s the oldest?”

“Oh, that’s Kiku, he’s 16 in case you were wondering.”

“Wow! That’s so cool! I-”

Lovino stopped listening to the conversation and instead listened to the sound of the minivan as it drove at top speed on the highway. He was looking out at all the trees that passed and felt himself longing for that spot in the woods behind their house that he loved to hide in when he was upset.

The only one who knew about it was their grandfather, who would sometimes come down and sit with him. Sometimes he’d try and talk to Lovino, but he rarely ever let up on what was bothering him. So, Nonno would be silent, or he would tell him jokes and stories to make him feel better. Those were the moments that made him feel as if he cared about him just as much as he felt about Feliciano.

But now he would never get to go back to that spot, he would never see that forest behind their house ever again. And most importantly he would never get to hear another one of Nonno’s dumb jokes or unrealistic stories ever again.

“Lovi,” he heard Feliciano call.

“What do you want damn it?” he snapped.

“I was just wondering if you were okay. You’ve been really quiet.”

Lovino opened and closed his jaw like he was a fish before angrily saying, “of course I’m fine asshole! I’m just upset that I’ll have to share a room with strangers that’s all!”

“I’ve actually arranged for both of you to share a room alone,” Yao explained, “and if you want no one is allowed in but you and your brother.”

“What if I wanted my own room?” he asked cautiously. So far Yao had been nice, but who was to say that he’d suddenly lash out if he said the wrong thing? It also wasn’t like he could run away if he did lash out, he was trapped in a car.

“I’m sorry, but there are no other empty rooms. You’ll either have to share a room with Feliciano or one of the other boys.”

“I’ll share with Feli.” At least then he’d know the person he was forced to room with. Even if he was annoying and liked to sneak into his bed in the middle of the night and had cold feet.

Feliciano reached over and enveloped him in a hug. “I’m so excited to finally share a room! We’ll be able to stay up and talk to each other without getting out of bed and I can climb into your bed when I have a nightmare and-”

“You do realize you already do that, right?”

His brother faltered before the grin returned to his face. “But we’ll also be able to do other stuff that we couldn’t do before like decide on a new colour for our walls that we both like and set up our toys so they can be together.”

“I haven’t played with my toys in like two years,” Lovino pointed out. He was thirteen, he was much more interested in things like cooking and flirting with cute girls than playing with toys. Not to mention Feliciano was only a year younger than him. Why was he still acting like a child and playing with toys? Was he planning on acting like a kid forever?

“Maybe one of the other kids there will play with me. That would be nice, you always say you’re busy and I’m forced to play alone.” Feliciano turned towards the front and asked Yao, “do any of the kids like to play with toys still? Do they even have toys?”

Yao laughed. “Yes, they have toys. We may not have as much money as you, but I make sure they get gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. I know that Alfred still plays with his toys and is constantly looking for someone to play with him.” Lovino swore he saw stars appear in Feliciano’s eyes. “Mathew isn’t as interested, but he will play with you if you ask.”

Lovino bet he would probably be alone again, as he almost always was. Everyone would probably think he was just like his brother and be disappointed when they found out that he was rude and pushy and cold. They would try at first to get closer, but eventually give up when they found out it would take too long. Maybe there would be one persistent person who would try for longer, but they too would give up at some point and he would be all alone.

“How much longer until we’re there?” Feli questioned.

_Oh, great now we’re in for it. Every five minutes he’s gonna ask the same thing till we’re there. Hopefully the damn orphanage isn’t too far._

“Actually, we’ll be there within 15 minutes.”

Lovino’s eyes widened in shock. Was he actually getting some good luck for once? Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.

 _Don’t get your hopes up,_ he thought. _You know how things go when you let yourself have too much hope._

Feliciano decided to take a short nap before he got to the orphanage, since it was now 3 o’clock and time for his siesta. Lovino also tried to fall asleep, but to no avail. He was still worried about how things would go. Although he didn’t act like it, he didn’t want to be alone again. It was depressing being alone, although it wasn’t as bad as being forced to live in bad company.

He shivered as he tried to supress the memories of his father and his angry outbursts.

Lovino was also worried that Yao would turn out to be terrible. Would he try and force him into a false sense of security before he turned around and beat him for every wrong thing he did? Would he be forced to sell his things so that Yao could get more money for himself? Would Yao find a way to steal his grandfather’s fortune that was sitting in a bank account until he was an adult and he could legally take his share?

He felt the car come to a stop and lifted his head. They had parked in front of a somewhat large building that appeared rundown. He saw a few kids standing out front but couldn’t make out their appearance from inside the vehicle.

“We’re here,” Yao announced before he got out of the front seat.

Feliciano yawned and stretched before opening his door.

“Come on Fratello, it’ll be fun!” He left the vehicle and stood by the car, waiting for him.

Lovino huffed but got out of the minivan anyway. It was better to just get this over with.

Feli grabbed his hand and tried to pull his brother towards the orphanage but was met with resistance.

“Loviiii,” he whined.

“We have to grab our stuff, we can’t just make Yao carry everything,” Lovino chastised. He grabbed one of his suitcases and started to drag it towards the group of people.

Feliciano quickly got one of his own suitcases and ran to catch up with Lovino. As they got closer, he could make out the faces of the small group of people standing by the door. The oldest and tallest of the five had black hair and brown eyes, Lovino assumed that this was Kiku. A kid with long blond wavy hair who seemed too smug for Lovino’s liking, two boys wearing glasses, the taller one was more soft and quiet looking while the shorter looked excitable and energetic, and finally a brown hair kid who looked extremely happy.

“Hello!” Feliciano greeted happily. “I’m Feliciano Vargas and this is my brother Lovino, but you can just call me Feli.”

The excitable blond was the first to introduce himself, “I’m Alfred Jones!” He pulled the shyer looking kid towards him. “This is my older brother Mathew Williams-Jones.”

Mathew extended his hand for them to shake. “It’s nice to meet you Feliciano and Lovino.”

Feliciano shook the outstretched hand with vigour while Lovino begrudgingly did so.

“So, we’re not the only siblings here?”

Alfred smiled. “Nah, there are tons of kids here with their siblings. There’s a group of siblings that live here that has two sisters and a brother.”

“Wow!” Feliciano gasped.

“My name is Kiku,” the tall kid said before bowing. Lovino thought it was a bit weird, at least he didn’t have to shake his hand though.

The boy with long wavy hair approached. “Francis Bonnefoy, it’s a pleasure meeting you.”

“And I’m Antonio Fernández Carriedo,” the happy brunet declared, “I’ll be showing you around the orphanage and answering all your questions!”

_Oh, great now I have to deal with two happy dumbasses. This is great!_

“I have a bunch of questions!”

Lovino groaned, “please don’t ask him a million questions like you always do! I’m sure he doesn’t want to answer them all.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all! I like to ask lots of questions too, so I’m okay with it.”

Lovino rolled his eyes. These two idiots were perfect for each other.

Antonio then lead them inside. “I’m going to show you to your room first so that you can put your stuff away,” he explained as they walked up a flight of stairs.

As they made it to the 2nd floor Antonio pointed to the first door on his right. “That’s mine and Francis’ room. I’ll show it to you after I show you guys your room if you want.”

Lovino didn’t really care one way or the other, just so long as at the end of the day he could be alone with his thoughts he’d be fine.

“Sure!” Feliciano said cheerfully.

They approached the next door on the right and Antonio pushed it open. “This will be your room. If you don’t like the colour of the walls, then Yao will be happy to buy you some paint.” He laughed. “I remember when Alfred first got here, he kept changing his mind on what colour he wanted his and Mathew’s room to be and eventually after the fourth colour Yao snapped at him and told him he had a week to decide or else he would choose for him. Alfred and Mathew eventually settled on red.”

As Antonio was recounting his story Lovino was scanning the room. It wasn’t as small as he thought it was going to be, but considering he had to share it with his brother and his old room which he slept in by himself was bigger, he knew it would take time to adjust to it. He took notice of the icy shade of blue that the walls were covered in and wondered who had slept here last and where they were now.

“Whose room was this?”

“Ivan Brasinsky,” Antonio replied, “when his sisters moved in, he and them took the biggest room at the end of the hall. When I bring you guys downstairs, you’ll meet him along with the others.”

“What’s he like?” Feliciano asked.

“Uh, he’s well…” Antonio trailed off. “He’s not very nice, he gets into fights with Alfred a lot and most of us don’t like him.” he shrugged. “I think he’s that way because of his time in the foster care system.”

“Is that the reason he came here?” Lovino asked. He wondered how many of these kids had lived with abusive relatives or guardians before they wound up here. Maybe he really would find solace in the orphans here.

“I’m not really too sure. He doesn’t talk about his past and if you try to bring it up around him, he gets violent.” Antonio looked up, realizing something. “I wouldn’t suggest asking anyone how they got here, some of us can be really touchy about it and they could get angry.”

Feliciano looked worried. “Does everyone here hate their pasts?”

Antonio laughed. “No, no. It’s just a sensitive topic for most, that’s all.”

“What about you?”

Antonio’s face darkened before he quickly wiped it off for a more closed off one. “I’m one of the ones who doesn’t really like talking about it.”

Lovino felt a shiver run down his spin. This kid may have seemed like his brother on the outside, all smiles and laughter, but what he had just seen proved that Antonio was very capable of becoming much more menacing.

Feliciano had his hands behind his back and was glancing down at his feet in shame. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay you weren’t trying to be mean. If you must know I came here when I was separated from my parents when I was really little, and I ended up here.”

There was obviously more to the story, but it was clear that the Spaniard wasn’t going to let up.

“Okay, thanks for sharing with us.” Feliciano came over to Antonio and gave him a hug.

Antonio returned it. “So, do you mind telling me how you got here? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, just because I told you doesn’t mean I expect you too.”

Lovino wanted to say ‘then don’t ask’ but Feliciano beat him to it.

“Oh, our Nonno had to go to the hospital and he ended up dying. The doctors told us that he had cancer in his brain that he didn’t know about and that’s why he had had a seizure and didn’t end up getting better.”

“I’m so sorry.” Antonio pulled Feliciano into another hug as he started to ball his eyes out… again.

Lovino scuffed.

After his brother had calmed down Antonio came over to his with his arms extended. “Do you want a hug too?”

“No! Get away from me bastard!”

“Lovi!” Feliciano yelped in shock. “Don’t be mean!” He then addressed the other. “I’m sorry, he doesn’t mean it, he just doesn’t like hugs and is upset because of what happened.”

Lovino didn’t know why he was bothering with the lies. Antonio and the others would find out eventually.

“It’s okay, I forgive you.” Antonio smiled.

_I’m not asking for your forgiveness bastard!_

Antonio then changed the subject. “I’ll quickly show you my room, then we can carry the rest of your stuff up before I introduce everyone.”

They walked back towards the stairs only for Antonio to open the door he had pointed out to be his earlier. They wandered in to see two beds like the ones in their room, only they had sheets and pillows on them.

Also, unlike their room there was posters on the walls and more furniture like a desk and chair. Not to mention their stuff wasn’t in suitcases and boxes. Their walls were also a much different colour.

“Really? Purple?” Lovino asked.

“Yep, Francis really likes the colour and although it’s not my favourite I still find it really pretty.”

“What is your favourite colour then?” Lovino crossed his arms.

“Red, because it’s the colour of tomatoes and sunsets.”

Lovino couldn’t help the genuine smile that spread across his face. “That’s my favourite colour too.”

After that they headed back down to Yao’s car and brought up the remainder of their belongings. Which was a lot, but not as much as they used to own. They hadn’t been able to bring most of their things. Yao had said he would bring them back to their old house to decide what happened with everything.

Now they were heading towards the library, the biggest room in the orphanage, where everyone was waiting to greet them. If he knew how to get around the building, then he would surely go hide in some secret room or something.

But seeing as how he’d probably get lost in two minutes if it weren’t for Antonio leading the way, that probably wasn’t going to happen. He could just hide behind a book shelf or something if the party got too overwhelming.

Antonio opened the door and Feliciano and he walked in.

The first thing he saw was a bunch of kids sitting on the chairs and the floor around a table with food on it. He guessed that there were over ten of them, most of which were boys. Actually, there were only three girls.

The first person to notice them was a kid with white hair and bright red eyes. He came over to them and addressed Antonio.

“Finally! You guys took forever! How much stuff do you own?”

“Gilbert don’t be rude,” Antonio hissed.

Gilbert laughed. “But I wouldn’t be me if I did that!”

Antonio rolled his eyes. “Lovino, Feliciano, this is Gilbert. Don’t mind him he can’t help being a jerk.”

“So, is your hair naturally white?” Feliciano asked.

“See I’m not the only one who asks blunt questions,” Gilbert pointed out. “Yes, it is, do you like it?”

“Yes, I do. It’s very unique and pretty.”

Then Francis came over followed by another boy with messy blond hair and green eyes.

“If you asked me, I’d say his hair would look better if he actually attempted to style it.” Francis then ran his hair through Gilbert’s hair, pushing it away from his face and showing his forehead.

Gilbert batted him off. “There’s no way I’d let you touch my hair, I’d probably end up looking like you.”

The green-eyed kid scoffed. “No matter what you look like you’re both bloody annoying now aren’t you.” He held out his hand for them to shake. “My name is Arthur Kirkland, don’t worry some of us here do have brains.”

 _This kid doesn’t seem too bad_ , Lovino thought, _even if he is dressed in nothing but black._

“I don’t think they’re annoying,” Feliciano admitted.

Lovino turned to look at him. “That’s not saying much considering you like everyone.”

“I don’t like everyone,” Feliciano pouted.

One of the girls then walked over followed by another kid who Lovino didn’t know yet. He was starting to get tired of this. At least now he was meeting one of the pretty girls instead of the irritating boys.

“Nice to meet you I’m Elizabeta,” the girl said.

“It’s nice to finally meet a cute girl,” Lovino admitted.

Elizabeta giggled. “Thanks, but flattery will get you no where.”

“I’m Feliciano, but you can call me Feli!” His brother also looked happy at the prospect of meeting a cute girl.

The other boy stepped up. “Hello I’m Ludwig.”

Feliciano suddenly gasped realizing something. “I forgot to give everyone hugs!” He then started to go around hugging everyone. He started with Ludwig who had a very shocked look on his face.

“You don’t need to do that,” Lovino said.

“Yes, I do!” Feliciano argued.

After going around hugging everyone that had already greeted them Feliciano went over to the others who had yet to introduce themselves. “Hello, I’m Feliciano and I’m going to give you all hello hugs!”

The tall kid looked a bit confused when Feliciano immediately wrapped his arms around him, but still introduced himself, “hello, I’m Ivan.”

So that was Ivan. He was very intimidating looking, although he hadn’t really acted like that towards his brother. Lovino would still make sure to avoid him at all costs though.

Lovino had to cover his smile when one of the two girls got angry at Feliciano for trying to hug her. He came back over sulking.

“I just wanted a hug,” he whined.

“Well some people don’t like hugs,” Lovino pointed out.

Antonio then came up behind Feliciano and threw his arms around him. “Don’t worry, I still like your hugs.” After their hug Antonio lead Feliciano over to the seating arrangement.

“Lovi are you coming?” his brother asked.

He sighed but came over and sat beside his brother on the floor.

“So, I heard you guys were born in Italy or something?” Gilbert wondered.

“Ya, we lived there for a few years before our dad moved us here. Grandpa had already moved here a few years before,” Feliciano answered.

“Why’d you end up going to move in with your grandpa then? Did something happen to your dad?” Alfred questioned.

Feliciano and Lovino shared looks. “No, he got really sick and couldn’t take care of us anymore, so we went to live with Nonno,” Feli said.

It wasn’t completely true, but it also wasn’t completely false. Their dad couldn’t take care of them anymore, but not because he was sick, but because he was in jail.

“Oh, that sucks,” Alfred mumbled.

Feliciano nodded. “But Nonno was great! He always gave us candy and took us out to fun places. He also told us really great stories.”

Alfred beamed. “My parents used to take me and Mattie wherever we wanted too, so long as they weren’t working. My favourite was the day they took us out all over town to different comic book stores so I could find this one Captain America comic book I wanted.”

“I wouldn’t call that fun. Being dragged all over the place and not even getting enough time to look at anything,” Mathew mumbled from beside him.

Alfred turned to him. “We got to do stuff that you liked too! We went to that really boring history museum once because you asked to go.”

“You would have had fun there if you had actually tried.”

“Oh, come on history’s boring!”

Alfred got several bad looks directed his way, but Arthur was the one to chastise him. “You do realize that knowing about your history is the only way to prevent it form happening again? So that society evolves instead of taking steps back?”

“Ya, but like that’s for school. Not for weekends when your supposed to be doing fun things!” Alfred huffed.

Lovino ignored the rest of what was said. Not wanting to talk to any of them anyways. He’d already banked Alfred as annoying and dumb, and even if Lovino bothered to scratch the surface and find he wasn’t as dumb as a sac of potatoes, he knew he wouldn’t get along with him anyways.

“Hey, hey.” Antonio said as he poked his arm.

“What?”

“You don’t look like you’re having fun,” Antonio stated.

“I’m not much of a people person,” Lovino spoke softly, so no one else over heard.

“Oh,” Antonio said, then leaned back. Guess he had already gotten him to hate him. But then he leaned back. “You could always say you don’t feel good and go to bed early.”

“Ya but then Feliciano will get all worried and won’t stop bugging me,” Lovino sighed.

“Ah sorry, um…” Antonio trailed off.

“Thanks anyways, I’ll just wait until it’s over. Your caretaker must have a curfew set up at some point.”

Antonio pursed his lips. “Do you mean Yao? He’s technically your caretaker too now.”

“Calling him by his name just seems weird, and I can’t call him bastard in front of him,” Lovino explained.

“You really seem to like that word,” Antonio noted.

“It’s not the only word in my vocabulary asshat!” Lovino hissed.

Antonio giggled. “You look cute when you’re angry, it’s kinda hard to take you seriously.”

“You’ll take me seriously when I’m beating the shit out of you!”

Antonio continued to giggle. He seemed to know that he was just bluffing.

Lovino calmed down and huffed, “what makes you think I couldn’t take you?”

“I don’t really know you, so maybe you could. Elizabeta taught me a bunch of fighting moves and I roughhouse with Gilbert and Alfred sometimes, but you could be a black belt in karate, and I wouldn’t know.”

“You mean the cutie with the flower hair clip likes fighting?” Lovino marveled.

Antonio nodded. “Oh, ya she loves to get into fights. Her favourite target is Gilbert, who used to pull her pony-tail all the time, before she started wearing it down. She also loves playing football with us and loves getting muddy. She probably the strongest out of all of us, except maybe Alfred and Mathew.”

Lovino pointed to Francis. “What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s one of my best friends! He really likes fancy clothes and when he’s old enough he wants to start wearing makeup. He’s kinda like you and your brother, only had one person left in his family to take care of him before something happened and she couldn’t anymore.”

He wondered what had happened to her. Had she been like his father?

“He needs to have attention though, like he lives off it,” Antonio said, “but all of us have some sort of weird quirk.”

“Like what weird quirks?”

“Like Eliza used to steal food and hide it under her bed after she moved in, Francis likes to tease and play jokes on people, but can’t stand them saying bad things about him, you know weird stuff like that.”

“And you?” Lovino asked.

“I used to switch on a dime, if someone said the wrong thing, I’d get furious with them and start attacking them,” Antonio admitted. “But don’t worry! I’m not like that now, I try to avoid fighting at all costs now, unless it’s play-fighting.”

Lovino thought it was probably more like Antonio still got easily angered but could mask it, not that he just no longer was bothered by it.

“Can you think of anything weird about yourself?” Antonio asked.

Lovino was tempted to shut him down. Yell, as if! But Antonio was the only one who had bothered to try and make him feel better, so he owed him to at least be nice.

“Sometimes I say things… I don’t mean.”

“Like what?”

“Hey what’re you two talking about?” Gilbert interrupted. “Are you confessing you’re love to one another?”

Antonio attempted to bat Gilbert, but he moved out of the way just in time.

“I was just telling him about everyone.”

“Only the truth of how amazing I am right?” Gilbert smirked.

Lovino responded with his own witty come-back, “he hadn’t gotten to you yet, but I’m sure he’d just tell me how big headed you are.”

Gilbert faked a gasp and put his hand over his heart. “I’m nothing but modest!”

“If by modest you mean, the most egotistical person in the room, then ya, you are.”

Francis and Ludwig who were sitting beside Gilbert had overheard and started chuckling.

“Betrayed by my own loved ones! How will I ever recover?”

“Maybe Lovino will be the one to finally humble you,” Ludwig suggested.

“That’s asking a lot from just one person,” Francis noted.

“True, his ego is almost to big to fit through the door.”

Gilbert faked another gasp and shoved both Francis and Ludwig over. “My ego is normal sized, and no one needs to fix me.”

The next few hours were of all of them talking, filling in Lovino and Feliciano on one another’s personalities and the recent dumb things they had done. Feliciano had laughed the hardest at how Gilbert had thought it would be a good idea to poor water on a sleeping Ludwig, only to find out too late that it was really Arthur who had then chased him up onto the fridge where he had hide for a good hour. Mostly Lovino had just talked with Antonio but had also found he didn’t mind the moments where he had talked to the others.

Now late at night, as Lovino climbed into bed he decided that this place didn’t seem so bad. Especially if Antonio stayed here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel as if Antonio makes Lovino a happier person. Even if I didn't ship them I'd still believe this, so that's why I made him slightly less prickly at the end. Although I hope it still doesn't come off as too OOC. I don't think a real realtionship could work if one person was always so negative and angry all the time, sometimes they would have to show a little kindness, which Lovino does do in canon so maybe it's not as OOC as I think?  
> Also yes I know I used snuck, the American word for past tense sneak but yet continue to spell it favoUrite and coloUr as if I'm British. This is the confusing life of a Canadian and our culture of America + England + France + a little of everyone else.


	9. Earth Brown is for Supportive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There you are Lovi, we’ve been looking all over for you!” Feliciano exclaimed.  
> “Why have you been looking for me?” Lovino didn’t bother hiding the annoyance and anger in his voice.  
> “I wanted to play with you outside. It’s such a nice day and I thought that maybe-”  
> “No thanks,” Lovino interrupted, “I was hiding for a reason you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I don't know exactly how many more chapters I'm gonna have I know it's gonna be over 20 in total. Meaning we're not even half way yet.  
> Anyways as always I hope you enjoy the chapter!  
> Ages: Francis 14, Lovino 13, Feliciano 12, Antonio 14, Ludwig 9, Gilbert 14

**August 2009**

Today was already written off as one of the worst Lovino had ever had and it wasn’t even noon yet. First at breakfast his brother had spilt his cereal all over his clean shirt and jeans, forcing him to change. After that Antonio had tripped over his own feet, crashed into him and he had slammed down on the hard-concrete floor bruising up the entirety of his back. Then he couldn’t find his wallet and just as he was about to start hunting for the suspect, he found it underneath his bed, and finally he had learned that his father was getting an appeal. How fucking perfect.

He was currently hiding in the library behind one of the bookshelves hoping against all odds that no one would come in here and find him. Usually he liked to go outside when he was angry, but it was a nice day out and he didn’t want to risk being forced into a conversation with someone.

“I don’t know. Lovino doesn’t usually come in here,” he heard Feliciano say.

He pulled his hair in frustration. Couldn’t his brother leave him alone for five minutes? It almost seemed like whenever he wanted to be alone Feliciano suddenly had the dying urge to be with him, but whenever Lovino didn’t care Feliciano was off with his friends.

“Well I thought I saw him come in this direction, so we may as well check.” That sounded like Antonio.

“Maybe Ludwig’s seen him,” he heard Francis suggest.

Oh, right he had forgotten the kid was in here, he was so damn quiet. Maybe there was a chance he hadn’t seen him when he had come in. Maybe he’d get some time to calm down.

“Hi Ludwig! Have you seen Lovino?” Feliciano asked.

“I think I saw him go behind that book case over there earlier, but I’m not too sure if he’s still there,” Ludwig replied.

_Thanks for nothing you stupid bastard!_

He heard three sets of footsteps heading in his direction before seeing his brother, Francis, and Antonio appear from behind the bookcase. Well there went his hopes of being alone for longer than ten minutes.

“There you are Lovi, we’ve been looking all over for you!” Feliciano exclaimed.

“Why have you been looking for me?” Lovino didn’t bother hiding the annoyance and anger in his voice.

“I wanted to play with you outside. It’s such a nice day and I thought that maybe-”

“No thanks,” Lovino interrupted, “I was hiding for a reason you know.” He leaned out around the shelf and shouted so Ludwig could be sure to hear him, “thanks a lot potato bastard!”

“It’s not Ludwig’s fault that we found you,” Francis pointed out, “and if you didn’t want to be found you should have told him not to tell us that you were here.”

“He would have told you anyways. He’s too infatuated with Feliciano to ever say no to him, not to mention he’s a jerk!”

“He’s not a jerk, he’s really nice!” Feliciano defended. Of course, he would defend him. Feliciano was more attached to Ludwig than he was to him. And that was saying something.

“Whatever. I don’t care what you think of him, can you just leave me alone? I’m not in the mood for people.”

“Is this because I spilt my cereal on you this morning? I said sorry!” Feliciano cried.

Lovino rolled his eyes. “No, it’s not that, I’m just having a bad day.”

_What an understatement._

“Then let’s make you feel better by having fun outside! We were going to walk to the ice cream shop and buy some,” Antonio suggested trying to convince Lovino.

“I said _no_.” Lovino then got up and headed towards the door.

“Lovi.” He ignored Feliciano and continued walking. When he stepped out into the small open area, he saw Ludwig watching them.

“Mind your own business!” he shouted. Ludwig quickly hid his face with the book he was holding.

“Lovino stop it!” Feliciano demanded.

Antonio spoke, “wait, Lovino!”

Lovino then felt a hand latch onto his wrist, preventing him from moving forward. Why couldn’t they just listen to him? Why did they have to continue pestering him when it was clear he just wanted to be alone? Why was it that they would do whatever Feliciano wanted, but never what he wanted? He hated feeling like his opinions and emotions were worth less than his brother’s.

He meant to turn around and forcibly remove Antonio’s hand from his arm, but in his blind rage he ended up doing something much more violent. He ended up swinging around and slapping Antonio square in the face.

He really hadn’t meant to.

A small red hand print was now forming on Antonio’s left cheek and the palm of Lovino’s hand where he had hit him was starting to hurt. He was too shocked to really care though. Had he really done that? He sure as hell had wanted to, but he didn’t think he’d go through with it.

Only when tears started to fall from Antonio’s eyes did Lovino feel guilty. He had never made the bastard cry before now. He had never even him see him cry, period.

He felt terrible.

But he was also still angry.

“What the hell Lovino?” Francis exclaimed. The two of them came over and looked Antonio over. Telling him words of comfort.

Lovino wanted to snap back but he didn’t know what he’d say. So, he just turned away and headed for the exit.

“Lovino,” Feliciano called weakly in a last attempt to make him stay.

He ignored him.

****

He had ended up going outside to the side of the orphanage. Away from the small playground they had, but still out of sight of the street. Lovino was sure that no one would come looking for him here. Or maybe at all. They were probably still too busy consoling Antonio.

Lovino rubbed his cheek shamefully. If Antonio didn’t hate him now, he would at least no longer want to be his friend anymore. Who would still want to hang around someone who hit you when you simply tried to hold them back? No one that was who.

Then he thought of how Antonio’s friends would react. If Francis and Gilbert wanted to give him shit for hurting their best friend, they’d do it later when he was forced to show up for dinner. Lovino didn’t know if they would end up beating him up or waiting to plan out their revenge or maybe something else but either way he didn’t care. He felt like shit anyways.

He was surprised to see two colourful sneakers appear in his downcast vision. He looked up and saw Francis glaring at him.

“I honestly thought if you were to come find me it wouldn’t be until later,” he admitted.

“That was a shitty thing to do Lovino,” Francis said, dismissing Lovino’s comment.

Even though he felt like the gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it out loud to Francis, or even apologise for it. He had spent the whole day under a dark cloud. Why couldn’t he be the one being comforted? Why was he always blamed for everything?

So instead of telling the blond how sorry he was, he said, “so what? He shouldn’t have grabbed my arm in the first place. Yao’s always telling us off for touching people when they don’t want to be.”

Francis’ expression turned furious. “God why do you always ack like this!”

“Act like what?”

“Act as if you’re above everyone and get angry all the time at them. It’s not as if we can read your mind!

“Well none of you are going through the same things as I am right now!” Lovino shouted.

“Maybe that’s true but that doesn’t mean you know what everyone else is going through,” Francis replied.

“Whatever,” Lovino mumbled, looking back down.

“Don’t act like you’re so special, as if you’re the only one here who doesn’t have problems. Don’t act as if you haven’t been violently woken up by screaming from Ivan, Arthur, or hell even Ludwig. Don’t act as if you can’t see the light die a little bit in Alfred’s eye, each month his parents don’t show up, as if even after countless years of waiting isn’t enough proof to kill his childish wish. Because you may have problems that are valid, but that doesn’t give you the right to act as if you’re the only one here that has any, or that yours are somehow any more important than the rest of ours.”

Lovino sighed. He was tired of putting up this stupid act. “I know.”

Francis faltered. “What?”

“I said I know damn it.” He reached for the curls in his hair and started to twirl them around his fingers. Hoping to calm his new-found nerves. “I just don’t know how to deal with it.”

“You could talk to Yao about going to a psychologist.”

As if they had the money to do that. “I’m not talking about my fucked-up head! I meant about the situation with my father.”

“What about him? I thought he was in jail or something.”

“Ya well he’s getting an appeal. And if he wins, he’s going to force me and Feli to go back and live with him.”

Francis looked confused. “But… wouldn’t you like that? I mean he is your father. You wouldn’t have to live in the orphanage anymore.”

Lovino stayed quiet.

Realization dawned on him. “Unless of course he did something to you and that’s really why you went to live with your grandfather.”

Lovino nodded. “Let’s just say that he didn’t go to jail for being a good parent.”

“You know that Yao would never let that happen. If that’s the case.”

Lovino looked up from his feet and held eye contact. “What if he offered him enough money to not only retire, but to also be able to fix up this place, give each and everyone of you enough to move out and own your own houses, and still have enough to blow on his own personal jet?”

Francis didn’t back down. “You know as well as I do that Yao isn’t interested in money. If he was, he wouldn’t have given us field trips, or new presents every once in awhile. He would have spent the money on buying his own house far away from us instead of living in the attic.”

“Even if my father’s money can’t buy Yao, what’s to say it won’t buy the guy who decides his, my brother and my fates.”

“If you’re father comes knocking on our door ready to drag you and Feliciano back to his hell hole of a house, every single one of us will fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening,” Francis declared.

Lovino scoffed.

“And I’m not just talking about your brother. We’d do it for you too.”

“Why the hell should you? I’m shit.”

“No, you’re not. You just want to think you are.”

Lovino crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why does nobody act like I’m not.”

“Antonio does,” Francis pointed out.

The Italian tightened his grip on his chest, hoping it would make the pain inside stop.

Francis continued, “you know he still cares about you right? He doesn’t hate you.”

“Why?”

Francis laughed. “He thinks you no longer like him because he was ‘so oblivious about Lovi’s feelings’ that he made you so angry you hit him. He keeps saying he should have listened to you and given you space and just hopes you don’t hate him.”

“I don’t hate him!” Lovino said a bit too hastily. He groaned and covered his face, blushing.

Francis grabbed his arm. “Come on, we’ll go tell him and get this cleared up.”

“But what about my dad? How will I tell Feliciano? What happens if he wins?”

Francis thought for a moment. “First, we’ll go talk to Antonio, then we’ll tell Feliciano and finally Yao. Yao will know what to do should he win, but after we do all that all we can do is hope.”

Lovino agreed before letting Francis drag him back into the building.

****

“I’m back Antonio,” Francis declared as he walked into their shared room.

“You were gone for a lot longer than it takes to take a piss,” Gilbert remarked.

“Please don’t tell me you went and hurt Lovi! I asked you not to!” Antonio cried.

Gilbert looked annoyed. “Ya you better not have! We were supposed to go and confront him together!”

“Gilbert!”

“I’m sorry Gil but I knew you’d just start punching without letting him talk so I went and found him,” Francis turned to the opened door, “you can come in.”

Lovino slowly entered the room to see Antonio sitting on his bed, underneath the covers with Gilbert sat beside him and Feliciano on the floor. Antonio’s cheek was still red, and his eyes were still a bit puffy from all the crying he had done. Lovino didn’t know if he could do this.

“Come on,” Francis insisted.

Lovino came closer but stopped when he saw Gilbert’s icy look.

“You better have a good explanation,” he threatened.

“Uh...” he trailed off unsure how to start. He looked over to Francis who gave him a reassuring smile.

“Look I’m… sorry about slapping you. I’ve had a shitty day and when you guys came and kept ignoring me when I was saying I wanted to be alone it… pissed me off and I wasn’t thinking.” It was hard to get out past his pride, but the look on Antonio’s face was worth it.

“Really? You don’t hate me?”

“Of course, I don’t idiot!”

Antonio’s smile got even bigger. “Yay! Lovi still likes me!”

Lovino smirked. “More like tolerates you.”

Antonio looked a bit heartbroken before realizing Lovino was being sarcastic and laughed.

Gilbert wasn’t as quick to forgive. “How shitty was your day to justify slapping him? I mean sure he grabbed your arm which he shouldn’t have done but like you couldn’t have just taken his hand off of you?”

Lovino glanced over to his brother then back again. “My dad… he’s getting an appeal and if he wins, he’ll try and force me and Feliciano to live with him again.”

Feliciano came running over and hugged him. “Oh no what will we do?”

Gilbert grimaced. “Shit man I didn’t know.”

“Whatever. It’s fine.”

“What will we do about your dad though?” Gilbert asked. “We can’t just let him have you!”

“Telling Yao is the best thing to do,” Francis declared, “he’ll know what to do and will make sure your father doesn’t lay a hand on either of you.”

“Ya let’s go tell Yao!” Antonio cheered.

They went and found Yao, making sure Lovino told him everything he knew about when the appeal was and anything else he had heard. Yao had listened attentively and when Lovino was finished he promised he would make sure that no matter what they were both safe.

Once everyone got word of their dad, they all made their own comment on how they were there for them. Even Ivan said he would fight their dad before letting him take them away.

The whole ordeal was strange. Lovino wasn’t used to so many people being on his side, caring about him so much. It was nice.

Although he would never admit that to anyone.

****

On the day of his father’s appeal Lovino was a wreck. He couldn’t leave his bed he was shaking so much. Yao had told them before that they didn’t have to go to school today and honestly Lovino didn’t think he’d be able to walk to his door, let alone the bus stop on the corner of their street.

On the other hand, Feliciano couldn’t stay still. He kept pacing around the room, constantly doing something with his hands whether it be pulling his hair, chewing his nails, or playing with his fingers.

Kiku had suggested drawing or painting to help calm him down, but Feliciano couldn’t even sit down long enough to draw something as simple as a shape.

When the time came for everyone to go to school Feliciano had started crying and begging someone else to stay. Knowing that if one of them had a nervous break down the other wouldn’t be able to help. Ludwig and Antonio had ended up staying behind to help keep them calm. A rarity for Ludwig, who tried his best to never miss school.

While Ludwig and Feliciano were busy walking around the orphanage, Antonio was sitting beside Lovino in his bed.

Antonio had mainly been quiet at first. Not wanting to upset his friend and not knowing what to say. But then Lovino had a panic attack. Antonio had managed to calm him down without alerting anyone else in the building about what was happening. Thank God, Lovino’s pride probably wouldn’t be able to handle it if Yao or the potato bastard saw.

After that Antonio had tried to distract him by holding his hand and telling him stories. At first, they were about him and his friends doing stupid shit, to which Lovino snorted and called them dumb asses. After that Antonio ran out of memories to tell so he made up tales. All utterly ridiculous and if Lovino was in the right frame of mind would have insulted Antonio a lot more for coming up with a story called ‘The Tomato Thief and his Lover’, but right now it was helping keep his mind occupied on anything other than _that_.

Feliciano and Ludwig eventually came back to their room, Feliciano having relaxed enough to be able to sit for a short while. Which was good, Lovino supposed but he knew that it would only last so long. Feliciano was a fidgety person by nature and didn’t like to stay still for longs periods of time when he was cheery.

It was just after 12 when Yao came in.

“So, the court proceeding has ended, and I was informed about what happened,” he said.

Lovino held his breath. This was it. If his father had won, he could fight for custody battles for them back and pay millions for the best lawyer and under the table to the judge and others in court to win. Lovino would have to go back to that hell.

“Thankfully he was denied and was forced to continue his sentence as planned.”

Feliciano sobbed in happiness and Lovino felt a few of his own tears fall in relief.

“How’d you make sure he lost?” Antonio asked.

Yao smirked. “I made sure to give them some proof of the multiple crimes he had done before being convicted and how he managed to weasel his way out of them with his money and how it wouldn’t look very good to the public if they found this. Especially if they were planning on letting him go.”

Feliciano ran up to Yao and gave him a hug. “Thank you so much!”

Yao patted Feliciano’s head. “I’d do anything for you.” He looked up and over at Lovino. “For any of you.”

Lovino let a small smile grace his lips. Maybe it was worth it to hope.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm wondering if I should add the ships as they appear or keep them off completely so that future readers are surprised but like idk. Would readers get angry if their rival ship came up when they originally thought it would be their ship and demand to know why I didn't tag them? Like I've read fanfics where they don't say the ship in the tags and later reveal to be ships I don't care about or don't like at all but like I really didn't care. I signed up for a surprise and I knew it wouldn't necessarily be what I wanted. What are your thoughts?


	10. Dark Green is for Intelligence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He needed something else to do, someone to play with. Even if he was the best company, he knew he couldn’t always entertain himself. Maybe he should try and find Antonio and Francis.
> 
> Just as he thought this, he heard something being slide under his door. He ran over to see a folded piece of paper sitting on the floor. He picked it up and opened the door, but no one was there.
> 
> “Weird,” he thought aloud as he closed the door and opened the paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this idea for a different fanfiction that I just needed to get down instead of doing what I should have been doing, which was finishing this chapter sooner.  
> Also chapter 11 is already completed so I'm probably gonna post it later this week, maybe even tomorrow if I think I'll end up forgetting to post it later. It would probably help if I work on the chapters in order instead of randomly, but forcing myself to write a chapter I just don't want to at that moment doesn't help me get anything done so I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.
> 
> Ages: Gilbert 14, Antonio 14, Arthur 13, Alfred 10, Mathew 12, Feliciano 12, Ludwig 10

**December 2009**

Gilbert was in his room playing with his toy sword, swinging it around in no particular direction. Whipping it back and forth pretending to defeat a horde of enemies. He then violently pretended to be stabbed and fell to the floor.

“This is so boring!” He whined to himself.

He needed something else to do, someone to play with. Even if he was the best company, he knew he couldn’t always entertain himself. Maybe he should try and find Antonio and Francis.

Just as he thought this, he heard something being slide under his door. He ran over to see a folded piece of paper sitting on the floor. He picked it up and opened the door, but no one was there.

“Weird,” he thought aloud as he closed the door and opened the paper.

 

_‘The first thing I am sending you to retrieve,_

_Has something to do with leaves,_

_It starts off dry but come out wet,_

_Some consider it as addicting as a cigarette._

_Now do not fret,_

_Because I am not done yet,_

_I will tell you where you can find it,_

_With this very short bit._

_Everyone has one in their house,_

_And if it’s not clean it’s a good place to find a mouse._

_Have fun searching!’_

 

What the hell did that mean? Gilbert scratched his head and tried to concentrate. What was made of leaves yet addicting? Weren’t leaves supposed to be good?

He read over the riddle again and decided to go with finding out what the last part meant first, since it sounded the easiest.

Every house had one? Well, every house had a bedroom but why would a mouse be in there?

_Think Gilbert, think! What do mice like? They like cheese and where do you get cheese… the kitchen!_

He started to walk towards the kitchen with the riddle still tightly clutched in his left hand. He smiled to himself, now at least he was doing something as awesome as he was! Once he reached the room, he started to turn in a circle to see if he could get an idea of what the letter meant.

“What on earth are you doing?” Arthur asked as he stepped into the kitchen and saw Gilbert spinning around in a circle.

Gilbert stopped and immediately held his head in his hands, maybe spinning in a circle wasn’t that great of an idea.

“I’m trying to figure out this riddle, it led me here, but I don’t know what the thing I’m supposed to get is,” he explained.

Arthur walked over to him and gave the riddle a read. After a moment of scanning over the riddle he said, “it’s talking about a tea bag.”

“What?”

“Most tea is made with leaves, it’s dry before you put it in the boiling hot water, and since some types of tea have caffeine in it, it’s considered addicting.”

“How’d you come up with that so quickly?” Gilbert marveled. Had he been the one to write it?

“Maybe because I’m British.” Arthur shrugged. “Anyways, I only came in here to get myself a scone.” Arthur then grabbed one of the cranberry scones out of their container and left the room.

Gilbert then went over to where Yao kept the tea bags and lifted the jar to see another piece of paper hidden underneath it. _Bingo._

 

_‘I come in colours of every kind,_

_I make a piece of art when combined._

_I live in a quiet place,_

_For artists it’s a great workspace.’_

He could tell as soon as he read it that they meant the quiet room. He couldn’t think of anywhere else in the orphanage that there was a rule about not being rowdy. As for the other bit, he wasn’t too sure, it could mean the paint or the pencil crayons, either made sense.

He entered the quiet room to see Feliciano, Mathew, and Alfred all drawing quietly at the table.

Alfred was the first to notice his arrival. “S’up dude?” he asked.

“Someone gave me this riddle and it sent me to the kitchen, then the next one sent me here.”

Mathew lifted the box filled with pencil crayons to reveal another folded piece of paper. “So that’s what this is?”

“Ya!” Gilbert exclaimed and grabbed the riddle.

 

_‘Now since you’re so smart,_

_Here comes the hard part,_

_Can you still find all of my clues?_

_Even if you missing some important screws?_

_I am somewhere in your house,_

_Where you might find a couch,_

_You can sit there and watch TV,_

_It’s a place to be carefree.’_

 

Now it wasn’t even going to tell him what he was looking for? Only where it would be? That was so unfair!

Alfred and Feliciano leaned over his shoulder to read the message as well.

“Isn’t there only one TV in the house?” Feliciano asked, “or do some of you have them in your rooms?”

“No, the only one is in the living room, so it’s pretty easy to figure out the general area it’s in, but it could be under the table, or behind the TV, or in between one of the cushions,” Gilbert explained.

“Maybe the screws are also referencing where in the living room it is,” Mathew said, “like the only piece of furniture that has screws in that room is the table, so maybe check there first.”

Gilbert patted Mathew on the head. “Thanks kiddo.”

Mathew made an annoyed face and covered his head with his hands to prevent further onslaught from the albino.

“Well good luck!” Feliciano said as he went back to his drawing.

“I’m too awesome to need luck!” Gilbert declared as he ran from the quiet room towards the living room.

He tore through the hallway and slammed open the door to the living room.

Antonio who was stretched out on the couch watching some Spanish soap opera, was so surprised he yelled out “Ay dios!” as he almost fell off the couch.

Gilbert snorted but didn’t bother apologizing.

“Gilbert what the heck? You almost made me face plant into the table!”

“Sorry Tonio,” he didn’t look anything close to sorry, “I’m just trying to find out what this riddle means so that I can find out who’s leaving them all over the orphanage.”

Antonio perked up, forgetting what had just happened. “What riddles? Can I see?”

Gilbert came over and sat beside him on the couch. “Someone put these papers all over the place and is making me find them. The first one was slide under my door and lead me to the kitchen where it was hidden under where the tea is. This one lead me here but it doesn’t give me any hints as to where it is in here.”

As Antonio read over the riddle Gilbert attempted to watch the soap opera that was on. It was hard as he didn’t speak a word of Spanish and even if he did, they were talking too fast for him to make out what words they were saying.

“This is the most dramatic thing I’ve ever watched. Why do you even like it so much?” he asked.

Antonio blushed and turned the TV off. “It’s actually really interesting.”

Gilbert shrugged. “If you say so.” He leaned over so he could look over the note again. “Where do you think it could be?”

“I thought I saw a piece of paper taped to the bottom of the table, but I didn’t bother checking to see if that was what it actually was.”

Gilbert was lying on his back under the table before Antonio had even finished his sentence. “Got it!” he cheered. He went back up onto the couch and opened it up for both of them to read.

_‘You love me very much,_

_I’m not always willing to be touched._

_I have much to say but never yack,_

_I have no bones, but my spine may crack.’_

 

“The first part sounds like it’s talking about a cat, but we don’t know any.” Antonio tilted his head to the side.

“The person couldn’t be you or Francis since you both love cuddling and crap,” Gilbert stated.

“I don’t know who else it could be since no one else here loves you.”

Gilbert smacked Antonio’s arm as he started to laugh. “Shut up, and besides it says who _I_ love, not who loves me.”

“Then it’s probably Ludwig. I always see you giving him surprise hugs and him trying to struggle out of your grip.”

Gilbert nodded. “But what about the second part. Like seriously what the hell does yack mean?”

“Isn’t it English slang for talking or something?” Antonio guessed.

“So, it says stuff, but doesn’t actually talk and it doesn’t have bones, but does have a spine… not to mention Luddy will be there.” Gilbert rubbed his chin in thought. “Oh! It’s talking about the library, West’s always in there!”

The two took off towards the library. Guessing who it could be that was doing this.

“When Arthur looked at the first riddle, he got it almost right away. Do you think it could be him?”

Antonio shook his head in disagreement. “Nah, he’s not really into that sort of thing. Maybe it’s Alfred? He likes pulling pranks and stuff.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so. He’ super impatient and wants a quick reaction, not one that takes awhile.”

“True, maybe Eliza?”

“Not really her style.”

Gilbert opened the door and held it open for his friend.

“Thanks.”

He had guessed correctly, Ludwig was indeed in the library, nose deep in some book.

“Hey Luddy!” he shouted.

Ludwig jumped and turned to glare at his brother. “Why do you always feel the need to startle me?”

“Because it’s fun,” Gilbert proclaimed as he and Antonio came closer. “So, whatcha reading?”

“What do you want from me?” Ludwig asked. “Before you say anything, I know you don’t come into the library unless it’s to bother me or make me do something.”

“Surprisingly I am not here to drag you out so that we have equal teams in football,” Gilbert admitted. “We’re actually looking for a riddle. I’ve been following the clues and it’s taken me here. Do you have any idea which book it could be in?”

Ludwig then pulled out some paper from the back of his book and handed it to him. “I wondered why this was tucked in here.”

Gilbert eagerly grabbed the page and opened it.

 

_‘I get wetter as I dry,_

_I come in more than one size._

_I am located where one goes to clean themselves up,_

_It’s where girls sometimes keep their makeup.’_

 

Gilbert looked up at Ludwig. “Have you read this?”

“Well since I found it in my book, yes.”

He rolled his eyes. “And do you know what it means?”

“I didn’t bother decoding it once I saw that it was meant for you.”

Gilbert looked back at the page to see the words _‘- please give this to Gilbert’_ written on the bottom. Words he had skimmed over in his haste to find out where the next clue was.

“Do you have any ideas Tonio?”

Antonio shrugged.

“Luddy.” Ludwig looked back up from his book, his lips pressed in a hard line. “Can you read over this again and tell us what you think.”

It only took a moment of Gilbert giving the puppy dog eyes for him to cave and take the riddle out of his hand. Ludwig made sure to look over and think about the meaning of each part before handing it back to his older brother.

“I believe the first part is talking about a towel. The other half I don’t know, no one here has any makeup, so it’s not stored anywhere.”

Gilbert looked to Antonio. “Didn’t Yao say that when Francis is old enough to get his first make-up kit, he’ll have to keep it either in your room or the bathroom?”

“You’re right he did!”

Both of them went barreling towards the door. “Thanks Ludwig!” Gilbert cried out behind him.

“You’re welcome,” Ludwig replied as the two went running down the hallway.

The two friends ended up deciding to race, pushing each other to the side to try and sabotage them. Once they had made it to the bathroom they both stepped foot into it and yelled “I won!”.

“I think we got here at the same time.”

Gilbert took a few breaths before responding. “Then I guess it’s a tie.” As soon as he caught his breath he went to the towel rack and started pulling out all the towels and looking through them.

“Make sure to fold them before you put them back. I don’t want Yao to yell at me again,” Antonio said.

“Ya, ya, don’t worry you big softy. I won’t do anything that gets you yelled at.” He pulled out the last towel and saw the note resting right there.

“I found it!” Gilbert cheered as he placed the rest of the towels to the side, still neatly organized.

Antonio came over and rested his chin on Gilbert’s shoulder as they read.

 

_‘You’re probably wondering when this will end,_

_Well don’t you worry my friend,_

_All you have to do is one simple thing,_

_Come outside and look at the swings._

_But I just want to ask,_

_Have you been able to find out who it is behind the mask?_

_I’ll give you some advice,_

_Since I am so nice._

_My hair is the colour of the shinning sun,_

_I am close to you, I should hope you consider me a loved one.’_

 

“Let’s go!” Gilbert cried as they finished reading the note. They then both made their way downstairs to find who was waiting for them.

Once they got to the backdoor he opened it to see Francis sitting on the swing set, wearing his purple coat and black boots, and cheeks flushed from the cold.

“You found me!” Francis congratulated. “so, did you guess it was me or did you think it was someone else?”

“Gonna be honest,” Gilbert said, “I thought you had gone shopping for the day with Feliks so I ruled you out in the beginning, but I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

“I thought several people might have been in on it,” Antonio confessed.

Francis jumped off the swing and came closer. “Well you’re not wrong mon ami, I did get some help. They didn’t know that it was me though, or that they were helping.”

Gilbert and Antonio looked at each other in confusion.

“I made sure that even if you couldn’t decode the riddles, someone else nearby could. That’s why I chose what I did, I know Arthur has some weird fascination with tea and that someone was bound to point out there was only one Television.”

“Cool,” Gilbert said through chattering teeth, “but can we go inside now? We’re only wearing hoodies and it’s -17.”

“Oh course.”

The three of them went back inside and enjoyed the remainder of the afternoon drinking hot chocolate and watching the rest of Antonio’s soap opera with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ludwig, like all siblings loves his brother but is just annoyed by his antics.


	11. Amethyst is for Peace of Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He loves me."  
> "He loves me not."  
> “What are you doing?” a voice asked from above him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short but sweet.
> 
> Ages: Antonio 15, Lovino 14

**May 2010**

Antonio plucked one of the flowers petals off. “He loves me.”

He plucked another. “He loves me not.”

“He loves me.”

“He loves me not.”

“He loves me.”

He picked the last petal off the wild flower. “He loves me not.” He pouted, upset at the answer he had gotten.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from above him.

“Lovi!” he greeted. “I’m playing the love me/love me not game. You know where you pick off the flower’s petals and say-”

Lovino interrupted him, “Ya, ya, I know what the game is idiot.” He sat down next to him near the little cluster of wild flowers. It was still nice out, especially with the sunset painting the sky in hues of oranges, yellows, and pinks.

Antonio picked up another flower and started again. “He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me.”

“Wait he? Who are you interested in?” Lovino asked.

Antonio flushed and avoided eye contact. “Ah, I wasn’t really thinking of anyone.”

“Then why not say she?”

Antonio played with the steam of the flower nervously. “Because I- I don’t care if I end up with a boy or a girl?” It sounded more like he wasn’t sure than making a statement.

“Then why not switch?” Lovino was clearly teasing him. Having fun seeing him squirm.

“I don’t-”

“Come on, what’s there to lose in telling me who it is?”

 _A lot,_ Antonio thought. But it would feel good to no longer have to keep this secret.

“It’s you. It’s always been you,” Antonio mumbled.

Lovino stayed quiet, which was the worst possible reaction that he could have gotten. He could expect him to call him a bastard or an idiot or cursing at him for thinking they would ever be together like that, but silence was something he had never done before.

He must have been enraged.

Antonio started to plead with Lovino, “please don’t hate me! I’m sorry! I can’t stop feeling this way about you, but I don’t have to act any different around you and we can pretend it never happened! Please just-”

Lovino interrupted Antonio with a kiss on the lips. It was soft and simple. No teeth or tongue, just a gentle pressure of lips on one another. It was the best kiss he had ever had.

“I thought you only tolerated me.”

“No,” Lovino answered,” I jut have trouble being… affectionate like my brother and I don’t want to get hurt.”

Antonio smiled. “I promise never to hurt you.”


	12. Bright Yellow is for Frienship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why couldn’t she come again?” Eliza asked as she studied her fingers. Making sure she had put the first coat on smoothly. She noticed she had managed to get some on her carpet and reached for a tissue to clean it up.
> 
> “Her brother wouldn’t let her because it was last minute.”
> 
> “Boys can be so annoying!” Natalia huffed. “Just the other day this boy in my class thought it would be a good idea to try and jump from desk to desk. He ended up breaking his leg.”
> 
> Iryna nodded. “I know even Ivan can be dumb from time to time. I guess it’s just written in their DNA.” Natalia then passed her the silver nail polish.
> 
> “Ya,” Eliza replied weakly as a certain person crossed her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages: Elizabeta 14, Natalia 14, Iryna 16

**September 2010**

Elizabeta, Natalia, and Iryna had just gotten off the bus from school and were now making themselves comfortable in Elizabeta’s room. Even if the sister’s room was bigger, they wanted to spend their girl time alone, and they couldn’t do that when they shared their room with Ivan.

“What colour do you want?” Natalia asked as she held up the few nail polishes they owned.

Eliza tapped her chin in thought. “What colour do you think would suit me best?”

“Green really seems to suit you,” Iryna said, “it brings out your eyes.”

Elizabeta grabbed the green nail polish and started to unscrew the top.

“What colour do you think I should choose?” Iryna asked.

Natalia picked out the light blue. “You’ve always looked good in blue.”

“But I wore that last time, I want to wear something different.”

“Too bad Julie couldn’t come, she has more of a selection than we do,” Natalia noted as she looked over the polishes.

“Why couldn’t she come again?” Eliza asked as she studied her fingers. Making sure she had put the first coat on smoothly. She noticed she had managed to get some on her carpet and reached for a tissue to clean it up.

“Her brother wouldn’t let her because it was last minute.”

“Boys can be so annoying!” Natalia huffed. “Just the other day this boy in my class thought it would be a good idea to try and jump from desk to desk. He ended up breaking his leg.”

Iryna nodded. “I know even Ivan can be dumb from time to time. I guess it’s just written in their DNA.” Natalia then passed her the silver nail polish.

“Ya,” Eliza replied weakly as a certain person crossed her mind.

Natalia looked up from trying to unscrew the stubborn lid of the purple nail polish. “Why are you so quiet? Usually you love to talk about how boys can be such dumbasses. You are the expert; they pick fights with you the most.”

“I know but…” she trailed off. “I don’t know, just not all guys have been morons towards me lately.”

Both Natalia and Iryna shared a look.

“Who is it?”

“Which moron do you have a crush on?”

Elizabeta stayed silent.

“Can you at least give us a hint?” Iryna asked.

“Well, he goes to our school and-”

“Ow!” came a harsh whisper from the doorway.

All three girls looked at each other before turning to see that the door was open a crack and that two figures were standing behind it.

“Uh, hi,” Gilbert said awkwardly.

The girls then grabbed the pillows off of Eliza’s bed and ran to the entrance. They chased off the two boys, throwing the pillows at them. One even managed to hit Francis in the head.

“Don’t think this is over you dicks!” Natalia yelled after them as they ran down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All siblings share a room. Ivan and his sister’s have the largest room at the end of the hall. Everyone else has the same sized rooms. Suckers.  
> Also guess who. Is the boy Elizabeta’s referring to someone in the orphanage? Or maybe someone who hasn’t been introduced yet. You’ll have to wait and see.


End file.
